Envs 220 Exam 1

Front 1

What is Energy?

Back 1

Ability to do work

Front 2

What is Power?

Back 2

Rate at which we use energy

Front 3

What is the Law of Conservation of Energy?

Back 3

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed in form

Front 4

What are the nine types of energy?

Back 4

Mechanical Elastic Chemical

Electrical Magnetic Sound

Radiant Nuclear Thermal

Front 5

What are the states of energy?

Back 5

Potential and Kinetic

Front 6

What is potential energy?

Back 6

Stored energy

Front 7

What is Kinetic energy?

Back 7

Energy of motion

Front 8

What is Energy Intensity?

Back 8

Amount of energy used to produce $1 GDP

Front 9

Energy use is broken up into what four categories?

Back 9

Residential, Transportation, Industrial, and Commercial

Front 10

What is Gradualism?

Back 10

Slow changes in the Earth

Front 11

What is catastrophic?

Back 11

Large scale, rapid changes

Front 12

10 Billion Years Ago...

Back 12

The big bang occured

Front 13

4.6 Billion Years Ago...

Back 13

The sun was formed

Front 14

4.54 Billion Years Ago

Back 14

The Earth was formed

Front 15

Describe young Earth's atmosphere

Back 15

Mostly Carbon Dioxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide

Front 16

Describe young Earth's surface

Back 16

Hotter, more geologically active, more hostile to life

Front 17

What are Archea

Back 17

-Single Celled Organisms

-Dominated for +1 Billion years

-Able to survive in uninhabitable environments

-Dependent on Geothermal Energy

Front 18

2.4-2.3 Billion Years Ago...

Back 18

Great Oxidation Event

Front 19

What caused the GOE?

Back 19

Cyanobacteria producing oxygen through the first processes of Photosynthesis

Front 20

Components of Earth's modern atmosphere

Back 20

Nitrogen (78%)

Oxygen (21%)

Argon (0.9%)

Carbon Dioxide (0.03%)

Water Vapor (0-4%)

Front 21

What does the environmental Kuznets curve show?

Back 21

The relationship between environmental pollution and income per capita?

Front 22

What do the letters in the I=P*A*T equation stand for?

Back 22

Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology

Front 23

What is Affluence?

Back 23

consumption of each individual

GDP per capita

Front 24

What is coal?

Back 24

Fossil fuel, combustible, sedimentary rock

Front 25

How is coal formed?

Back 25

Intense Heat and Pressure on buried vegetation/organic matter over millions of years

Front 26

Five stages of coal formation

Back 26

Peat, lignite, sub-bituminous, bituminous, and anthracite

Front 27

What is coalification

Back 27

The formation of coal through gradual heating and compression of organic matter

Front 28

What are coal reserves?

Back 28

Deposits that can be mined with current technology

Front 29

What are coal resources?

Back 29

Estimate of global coal deposits

Front 30

Surface area mining

Back 30

-Shallow seam (<50m)

-Must replace overburden and restore after extraction

-Recovery Rate 90%

Front 31

Underground Mining

Back 31

-Shaft drilled to coal

-Mining machine breaks up seam before miners retrieve

-Recovery Rate 50%

Front 32

What influences Coal Value?

Back 32

-Sulfur Content

-Ease of access to seam

-Temperature, pressure, length of time

-Organic maturity

Front 33

Environmental Impacts

Back 33

-Atmosphere emission -carbon andsulfur

-Miner effects - inhalation, economic

-Groundwater - mining, power plants

-Surface mining - deforestation, displacement people and animals

Front 34

Instances of health impacts from coal emissions?

Back 34

Meuse Valley, Belgium 1930

London 1952

India 1984

Los Angeles and Salt Lake City currently

Front 35

What does the Air Quality Index do?

Back 35

Measures the quality of the air

Front 36

What is the mass number of an atom?

Back 36

Number of protons and neutrons

Front 37

What is an atomic number?

Back 37

Number of protons in the nucleus

Front 38

What makes an isotope different?

Back 38

Same number of protons, but different number of neutrons

Front 39

When is an atom most stable?

Back 39

When the number of protons and electrons are closest

Front 40

What is radiation?

Back 40

High power energy created by particles emitted from the nuclei of an unstable atom

Front 41

What is a half-life?

Back 41

-Amount of time it takes for half of or a radioactive nucleus to decay

-Exponential decrease

Front 42

Alpha Decay

Back 42

-Emits Alpha particle (2 protons and 2 neutrons)

-Large, slow particle

-Stopped by paper or skin

Front 43

Beta Decay

Back 43

-A proton turns into a neutron, and then emits an electron

-Smaller, faster particle

-Can be stopped with aluminum

Front 44

Gamma Decay

Back 44

-Emits photons and EM radiation

-Most penetration power

-Can be stopped with lead

Front 45

Fusion

Back 45

-Gives off energy through combination of two small atoms

-Eg: The sun

Front 46

Fission

Back 46

-Gives off energy through the splitting of a larger atom

-Currently used in power plants

Front 47

What do moderators do in a power plant?

Back 47

They control the chain reaction by absorbing extra neutrons produced by fission

Front 48

Enrichment

Back 48

-3-4.5% needed for nuclear fuel

-Make U-235 from -238

Front 49

How can nuclear reactors be classified?

Back 49

Generation, moderator, and/or type of coolant

Front 50

What causes Acid Rain?

Back 50

Reaction of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides with water vapor in the atmosphere

Front 51

What causes bad Urban Air Quality?

Back 51

Road Transport emissions

Front 52

Three largest Oil Spills?

Back 52

Gulf War Oil Spill - 1991

Deepwater Horizon - 2010

Ixtoc 1 - 1979

Front 53

What causes Acid Mine Drainage?

Back 53

The oxidation of iron sulfide in a coal mind, allowing sulfur to seem into groundwater

Front 54

What is Strip Mining?

Back 54

Blowing the top off of a mountain to access the coal underneath

Front 55

Fracking

Back 55

-Little to no regulation or research

-Chemicals used in drilling aren't cleaned up after, just left to sit in ponds