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29 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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active collection |
the use of devices, such as solar panels, to collect, focus, transport, or store solar energy |
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anthracite |
the cleanest-burning coal; almost pure carbon |
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barrels |
the unit used to describe the volume of fossil fuels |
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bituminous |
the second cleanest (and most common) form of coal |
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crude oil |
oil when it is first extracted (the form petroleum takes when in the ground) |
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energy |
the capacity to do work |
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fission |
nuclear reaction by which an atomic nucleus is split, releasing a ton of energy - 100 million to several hundred million electron volts of energy - often used on a heavy nucleus such as an isotope of uranium |
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fossil fuel |
a hydrocarbon deposit, i.e. petroleum, coal, or natural gas - derived from living matter of a previous geological time |
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First Law of Thermodynamics |
energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred and transformed |
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fly ash |
waste particles emitted from burning oal |
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half-life |
the amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive sample to disappear |
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Hubbert peak "peak oil" |
an influential theory that concerns the long-term rate of conventional oil extraction and depletion. It predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline. |
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hydroelectric power |
power derived using water |
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kinetic energy |
energy of motion |
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lignite |
the least pure coal |
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nuclear fusion |
fusing two nuclei |
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overburden |
the earth removed when strip mining in order to get to the deposit |
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passive collection |
the use of building materials, placement, and design to passively collect solar energy for warming or cooling |
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petroleum |
oil; a hydrocarbon that forms as sediments are buried and pressurized |
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photovoltaic cell |
a semiconductor device that converts the energy of sunlight into electric energy |
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potential energy |
energy at rest |
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proven reserve |
an estimate of the amount of fossil fuel that can be obtained from a reserve |
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radiant energy |
sunlight |
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scrubbers |
devices containing alkaline substances that cause much of the sulfur dioxide from industrial plants to precipitate out. |
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Second Law of Thermodynamics |
entropy is increasing; a significant amount of energy is lost to the universe as heat in most energy transformations |
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strip mining |
involves removal of earth's surface to get to the level of the mineral seam |
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subbituminous coal |
the third-purest coal (one above lignite) |
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underground mining |
aka shaft mining. Digging tunnels into the ground to reach deposits, through which humans manually collect the coal |
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wind farm |
a group of modern turbines |
