The main lesson is that the impact of energy use (and in particular fossil fuels) is a classic case that fits the I=PAT formula. The impact is increased by how much we use and that is a function of the number of people, how much money we spend and whether we have invested in efficient technologies or not.

The impacts of fossil fuels range from global (CO2 in the atmosphere) to mid-scale (mining, oil spills and mining disasters) to immediate/personal scale (toxicity of the fumes and particular from combustion.

List the four major sectors of the economy and about major sources of energy for the US economy.

What are the major sources of energy. How does the profile of energy use differ between US, Europe, and the developing world?

What are the differences between renewable and recycled resources?

What are the discovered and economical characteristics of mineral reserves?

Fossil fuels have many impacts, some are long term global (such as global climate change), some are immediate (spills, toxicity).

Define or describe net energy. Give an example of how the number of steps (even with relatively efficient processes) can lead to a low net energy.

Define the difference between risk, uncertainty and indeterminancy and give an example of each.

Why is predicting the future so uncertain?

In this context, what is a surpise? What is bounded rationality?

How do world views relate to the perception of risk?

Give an example of a scenario and describe how using scenarios helps understand uncertainty and prepare for potential surprises.

What are the three biggest energy sources for the US and what is the trend in their use?

Is more energy used in residential or commercial businesses?

What are the three biggest users of energy in residential housing?

Which region of the country has the lowest household energy consumption and which has the most? What is the ratio between these two (for example does one area use 2 times as much)? What accounts for this difference.

What's the general relationship of GDP and energy consumption in Japan?

Even though renewable energy is a low proportion of total energy use, the use is increasing rapidly. Give several examples of renewable energy and how fast they are growing.

What are the current reserves (in terms of years) for coal, oil and natural gas?

Define "proved reserves" and "unproved reserves".

Name four types of oil reserves including some unconventional sources. What is oil shale?

What five countries have the most reserves? Where does the USA rank on this list?

Compare the concepts of "energy return on investment" and "net energy".

How does EROI help understand renewable choices such as wind and solar?

Summarize Amory Lovins suggestion for solving the problem of our dependence on oil.

He focuses on the transportation sector. How much energy is used in cars actually goes to drive the wheels.

Describe the pattern of the decrease in the resource compared to the resource depletion rate. Why does the resource decrease steadily but the rate has a peak (in this model)?

For materials that are potentially recyclable (such as aluminum or iron), what is the effect on the depletion by increasing or decreasing the recycling rate? What happens to materials that aren't recycled?

Analysis and Synthesis questions:
These are the type of manipulations you should be able to perform; parse out the parts of the question, remember or find concepts that are useful, and then put those together into a coherent answer.

This is a 3 point question on the quiz, so it's worth thinking about.

What is wrong with simply trying to increase the ratio of renewable energy?

Give an example of how our energy sources in the future are uncertain. How does this effect the types of decisions we can make about our energy consumption?

What are the some of the advantages for local and on-demand power production to meet business or residential needs?