Biomass Fuel

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6 questions

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Using fossil fuels involves the extraction of resources from the Earth. These extractions disrupt many habitats such as the coastal and pristine wilderness. When we burn these natural fuels only part of the their energy is actually used, a lot of it is returned back to the atomosphere as heat plus it's by products go into the atmosphere in the forms of carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and solid particles. These disrupt the carbon cycle and the nitrogen oxides contrubute to acid rain. Acid rain falls down to earth and can make soil acidic down to a depth of three feet. This kills the plants roots and soon the plant will die. Many forests have been destroyed do to acid rain.

Important Fact

To generate energy at a power plant, fossil fuels needs three times as much than the amount of energy that reaches your home.

The burning of fossil fuels result for 75 percent of the human-made carbon dioxide that goes into our atomosphere every year. Examples of these are the oil, coal, and natural gas heat which are used as energy in airplanes, ships, trains trucks, buses and cars. In 1988 there was 21.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide released into the air through the burning of fossil fuels. The United States is the home of the world's biggest vehicular fleet although they only account for 6% of the world's population. This huge sum of vehicles accounts for 20% of the fossil fuel carbon dioxide that was emitted in 1988. Imagine what the figures are now.


Advantage and Disadvantages(Questions):

a) Is the energy source renewable?

Fossil Fuels will eventually run out because we only have a limited supply of it.

b) Does the energy resource produce much power, enough for a home, village, city from one power plant?

Fossil Fuels are used worldwide and is used to power whole cities.

c) Is the energy resource available all the time?

As long as people are mining for the fuels. Fossil fuels are available at all times.

d) Does the energy resource need to be transported to the power plant?

Usually it does, the mining fields transport coal to the power plants to be burned.

e)Does the power from the plant have to be transported over long distances?

Sometimes it does, some plants that burn coal are fairly near to the cities that it powers.

f)Is the energy resource polluting (in transportation, power production or with waste products)?

This form, fossil fuels are very polluting. In the power production it lets off dangerous gases, and the waste is toxic and dangerous.

g)Is the energy resource plentiful?(in how many parts of the world?)

At the moment, there are a lot of fossil fuels that can be found around the world, but eventually we are going to start running out.

h)How expensive is it to produce the power?

It is not that expensive to burn coal. They just use a big burning plant that doesn't really care about pollution.

i)Is the technology for the energy resource easy to use?

It is very easy to use. It is almost like having a big furnace where you burn coal that heats up water to produce steam.

j)Can this energy resource provide power for automobiles?

Fossil Fuels already power automobiles today.

k)How much technology is currently available for this energy resource?

Almost the whole worlds use fossil fuels and is the most popular one that is used. Almost all energy supplies are based around this kind of energy resource.

Ratings

From 1 to 5

a)Renewable or Non Renewable 1
b)Enough power for a city, for a village or for a home? 5
c)Available all the time, part of time or seldom? 4
d)Resources shipped long, or short? 4
e)Plant can be close to users or far away. 3
f)Non-Polluting or Polluting? 1
g)Plentiful or scarce? 4
h)Expensive or cheap? 4
i)Easy to use or hard to use? 4
j)Could power automobiles. 5
k)Currently available and widespread or scarce. 4

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