GeoscienceFossil Fuels and EnergyName: ______

Station 1: The Carbon Cycle

1. Draw and fill in the carbon cycle in the box

2. Carbon in the atmosphere comes in what form?

3. How does carbon enter the living part of the ecosystem?

4. Once carbon is trapped in the leaves of plants, describe two different things that can happen.

5. Which absorbs more carbon dioxide- land or ocean?

6. There are multiple ways that carbon gets released back into the atmosphere. List three possibilities.

Station 2: Formation of Coal

1. How does coal end up with such a high concentration of carbon?

2. What is peat composed of?

3. Where is it used?

4. Describe the composition of lignite?

5. What is it used for in Germany?

6. Bituminous Coal has a lot of energy, but what is the drawback of burning it?

7. Where are three places that Bituminous Coal is mined in the United States?

8. What type of rock is Anthracite?

9. How is Anthracite formed?

10. If Anthracite does not produce more heat than bituminous coal, why is it preferred?

Station 3: Coal in the United States

Using the Sample in Front of You

1. Question: An average coal fired power plant can burn up to 4,000 tons of coal per day. The sample in front of you weighs about 0.5 lbs. How many times more coal is burned per day by an average power plant than what is in front of you? (Coal plants do run 24 hours/day)(There are 2000lbs in a ton)

Show math here:

Article:

1. How much of the electricity in the United States is produced using coal?

2. What does clean coal Technology seek to do?

3. How does coal produce electricity?

4. What does coal washing do? How does it affect the Flue gas?

5. What do wet scrubbers do?

6. What are 2 methods of carbon capture? Describe each.

7. What are the 2 storage options for Carbon?

8. What is holding back alternate forms of energy from overtaking coal?

Station 4: Oil

1. What is crude oil?

2. How is crude oil formed?

3. What are 2 advantages of oil?

4. What are 3 disadvantages of oil?

5. This article talks about burning oil to produce electricity, but using the pie chart, what are the top 3 uses for oil?

6. In 2017 the United States used an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day!

  1. There are 42 gallons in a barrel, how many gallons of oil were used in the United States in 2017?
  1. There are 325 million people in the United States. How many gallons of oil did the United States use per person in 2017?

Station 5: Nuclear

Using the Sample in Front of You:

1. How many pounds of coal would have to be burned to generate as much energy as the simulated uranium pellet you have been provided?

2. Gallons of Oil?

3. Barrels of Oil?

4. Cubic feet of natural gas?

5. Why can nuclear energy cut air pollution?

Article:

1. Pound for pound, how does nuclear fuel compare to chemical fuel?

2. What is the result of fission?

3. How does the mass of the products compare to the mass or the original nucleus?

4. What has the missing mass been converted to? (E=mc²)

5. What are 3 types of nuclei that are easy to split?

6. How do “chain reactions” happen in a nuclear reactor?

7. What is “critical mass”?

8. What does a moderator do?

9. Describe the 2 types of light-water reactors.

Station 6: Renewable Energy

1. How is renewable energy different from fossil fuels?

2. Where does the energy that biomass contains ultimately come from? Explain the two ways biomass can be used.

3. What is the largest renewable energy source for electricity in the US?

4. Where are hydroelectric plants usually located? Why?

5. How can people use geothermal heat? Describe how geothermal energy is considered “renewable”.

6. What is the main use for wind power today? Describe the processes and factors that create wind.

7. Before we had solar technology, for what purposes did people use the sun?

8. What is a PV and how does it work? For what purposes can it be used (describe both the large and small scale)?

9. Before all of these technologies, what was our main source for energy?

10. In 2016, how much of our total energy consumption came from renewable sources?

11. What is the benefit of using renewable energy sources?

12. What is one of the driving forces behind why the use of renewable energy has doubled since 2000?

13. What are some of the limitations or problems with using renewable sources?