PHYS 3080 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Standard Deviation, Thomas Edison, Synthetic Crude
22 Jun 2016
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Unit 1: energy sources, units, consumption, resources and modelling. It might seem at first glance that there are many energy sources available on earth, but at the most fundamental level, there are only 3. ~90% of the energy used in the world today is provided by fossil fuels: oil, natural gas and coal. Energy stored in these fuels (chemical energy) is a combination of electric potential energy of the electrons and nuclei that constitute atoms and molecules, and the kinetic energy (energy of motion) of these electrons. Fossil fuels were created by the action of pressure and heat on the remains of plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. Hydrogen nuclei are fused together in a multi-step process, creating larger nuclei of helium and releasing energy (nuclear fusion) Wave energy is derived primarily from wind. Except for wave-powered navigation buoys, wave energy is not yet economically competitive with other energy sources.
