Energy, 2nd Ed.

Did you know that? ...

The human population will reach Earth’s carrying capacity slightly more than a century from now at the present rate of population growth (Ch. 2).
Every adult generates as much thermal power as a 150 watt light bulb (Ch. 3).
A transformer works only with AC electricity (Ch. 4).
Suppose water hyacinth doubles in one week. How long will it take for the water hyacinth that half covers a lake to cover the lake completely? (Answer: One week) (Ch. 5)
About half of all the electricity capacity available, called base load, is being generated 24 hours a day (Ch. 6).
The entire United States and much of Canada is interconnected in a huge grid of electric power lines (Ch. 6).
The chlorine in CFCs acts as a catalyst to turn ozone into plain oxygen (Ch. 7).
A tile floor feels cooler than a rug at the same temperature because tile can transfer heat away from the foot faster than the rug (Ch. 8).
Rates of chemical reaction in plants and animals double for each 10 °C rise in temperature (Ch. 9).
The freshwater on Earth would cover Earth to a depth of only about 1 m (Ch. 9).
One cubic kilometer of “average” crustal rock contains 200 million tonnes of aluminum, 100 million tonnes of iron, 0.8 million tonnes of zinc, and 0.2 million tonnes of copper (Ch. 10).
The total recovered amount of crude oil for the continental United States will ultimately total only 171 Gbbl (Ch. 11).

Autos emit 40% of the hydrocarbons, 70% of the carbon monoxide, and 45% of the nitric oxides released in the United States (Ch. 12).
Applying 17 existing technologies more broadly would raise average mileage in the United States to 43.8 miles per gallon from 28.3 (Ch. 12).
Visibility in the western United States is 150 km; visibility in the eastern part of the country is never more than 20 km or so because of the permanent haze hanging over the entire east coast (Ch. 13).
Particulates of size less than 10 micrometers are the most pernicious form of air pollution; levels much lower than allowed levels have still been found to be dangerous to health (Ch. 13).
In the Little Ice Age (~1550-~1850), northern Europe’s mean temperature was about 1 °C less than now. The Icelandic colony in Greenland disappeared, and Iceland itself was locked in pack ice for 6 to 9 months a year. There were general famines in Iceland, Norway, and Finland (Ch. 14).
After a volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, particles in the upper atmosphere led to cooling and crop failures due to frost in July and August of 1816, known as the year without a summer (also called “eighteen hundred and froze to death”) (Ch. 14).
The Greenhouse Effect is certain; it is the reason Earth is not at 255 K (-18 °C). Human intervention has already caused global warming of 0.5 °C (Ch. 15).
In a fission of uranium-235 by an incoming slow neutron, 2.43 neutrons are produced (Ch. 16).
The gaseous diffusion plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, used about 2% of the total electric energy generated in the United States to produce enriched uranium for weapons (Ch. 17).
Airline crew members get doses of about 2 mSv/h at 8 km altitude and can get 1 mSv/yr, about 10 times that of a chest x ray (0.1 mSv), and more than expected for nonnuclear workers (Ch. 18).
Coal-fired energy generation emits more radioactivity than is allowed nuclear energy generators (Ch. 18).
Installation of photovoltaic cells at a site is currently cheaper than connection to the electricity grid when the line must be extended more than half a kilometer to reach the site (Ch. 19).
Efficient modern windmills can produce 175 watts per square meter of area swept by the propeller (Ch. 19).
China has 90,000 small dams that generate electricity (Ch. 20).
The world has 150 “large” dams that together account for 40% of world capacity (Ch. 20).
Photosynthesis is only 12% efficient per se in transforming radiant energy to chemical energy (Ch. 21).
Kenaf (Hibiscus camabinus), a bushy plant having fibers ideally suited for making high-quality paper and paperboard, produces three to five times as much pulp per hectare as pine at half the cost (Ch. 21).
Organic farms, which do use crop rotation and manure spreading, have been shown to be essentially as efficient, in terms of total dollar return, as more conventional farms (Ch. 22).
Humans already use 25% to 40% of the world’s net primary productivity (Ch. 22).
MSW (garbage) produces methane at a rate of 250 m³ per tonne (Ch. 23).
About 5% of all the energy generated in the United States is spent on lighting (Ch. 24).
Energy conservation provides similar or greater comfort to people at reduced cost; it does not mean “doing without” (Ch. 24).
The energy cost of refining aluminum from ore is about 300 MJ/kg, while the energy cost for aluminum from scrap is about 7 MJ/kg (Ch. 25).
As of 1 January 1993, all packaging in Germany had to be collected by the manufacturers or the retailers and recycled (Ch. 25).
More than 20% of the energy cost of industry is in bringing energy to the materials processor (Ch. 25).
About 250 native American plants may become extinct by the turn of the century (Ch. 26).
Over 250 million tonnes of hazardous industrial waste must be disposed of each year (Ch. 26).
Water that was polluted can be cleaned up by concentrated sunlight (Ch. 26).

Created by: aubrecht@mps.ohio-state.edu [4 July 2002]