Assessment 3 feedback

1. Short answer worth 2 points

Describe how the I=PAT relationship applies to energy, in particular fossil fuels. How does this relationship help understand the "oil bubble"?

Energy consumption increases with population, wealth of the country and industrial level.

The bubble is when the resource is over-consumed. This happens because affluence (wealth) can handle the increased cost due to relative scarcity. More people with more money drives the depletion.

2. -- answer Energy CANNOT be recylced

3. answer - more steps leads to MORE losses, i.e. less efficiency

4. from the wiki - petroleum 30%, Coal 20%, Nuclear 10% and Solar 0.1%

5. from the chapter - risk is related to event and exposure, uncertainty is when you can't get a probability, indeterminancy is when there are information can't be know (and when your action might increase the relative lack of knowledge)

6. Short answer worth 3 points (as outlined in the question)

There is discussion of increasing the ratio of the amount of renewable energy (such as to 25% of total).
a) How much of a change is this, i.e. how much renewable energy is used now and how much would it have to increase?
b) Why won't increasing the percent of renewable energy solve environmental problems?
c) What suggestion do you have for changing the US's energy consumption that would have the most positive effect on the environment?

a. renewable estimates range around 8% including hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal. We would have to triple this proportion to get to around 25%

b. The impact of energy is from the use of fossil fuels, side effects of nuclear and the actual use of any form of energy. Increasing the total amount of energy used, even if a higher fraction is renewable will still have major impacts.

Another answer to this question might be that renewable energy forms also have major environmental impact, for example hydropower dams.

c. suggestions ranged from:

social - all of need to help and do our individual part