Fossil fuel, nuclear, and renewable energy resource concepts and their environmental tradeoffs tested on AP Environmental Science.
40 cards · basic cards · AI-written, checked twice. Edit anything.
- What type of rock formed from the remains of dead organisms over millions of years?
- Sedimentary rock
- Coal forms primarily from the remains of what ancient organisms?
- Plants and trees from ancient swamps and forests
- Petroleum (crude oil) is formed from the buried remains of what organisms?
- Microscopic marine organisms and plankton
- Which fossil fuel is a gaseous hydrocarbon mixture formed alongside oil and coal?
- Natural gas
- What is the process called when surface vegetation and soil are removed to access coal beneath?
- Strip mining
- Mountaintop removal is an extraction method primarily used for what fossil fuel?
- Coal
- The main by-product of burning fossil fuels that contributes to climate change is what gas?
- Carbon dioxide (CO2)
- Which fossil fuel produces the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy when burned?
- Coal
- What term describes the ratio of energy obtained from a resource to the energy required to extract and process it?
- Energy Return on Investment (EROI)
- In nuclear fission, what happens to a nucleus to release energy?
- A nucleus splits (divides) into smaller nuclei
- What is the primary challenge with nuclear waste disposal?
- Radioactive waste remains hazardous for thousands of years with no permanent disposal solution established
- What type of nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island?
- A reactor core overheated and either partially or completely melted
- In photovoltaic solar panels, what do silicon cells convert?
- Sunlight directly into electrical current
- What is the difference between solar thermal and photovoltaic solar energy?
- Solar thermal uses the sun's heat directly for heating (water or air), while photovoltaic converts light into electricity
- Wind turbines convert wind energy into what form of energy?
- Electrical energy