Study Guide

NONRENEWABLE ENERGY

1. List five main uses of fuel:
Cooking, Transportation, Manufacturing, Heating and Cooling, Generating Electricity

2. What are the two main problems of fossil fuels?
They are non renewable. There is a fixed amount of them on Earth. Burning them can cause Air Pollution

3. What are the disadvantages of electricity?
It is difficult to store
Other energy sources need to be used to generate it (i.e coal and oil)

4. What is a turbine?
Part of a power plant composed of blades that are connected to a generator. When steam hits the blades, they
spin, turning the generator and creating electricity.

5. Where does natural gas come from?
Created when tiny marine organisms that accumulated on the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago

6. What are the advantages of coal?
It is inexpensive and needs little refining before burning for energy.

7. Explain how a generator uses fuel to create electricity. Write it step by step.
Burn a Fossil Fuel
Heat used from burning the fossil fuel is used to boil water in a condenser.
Steam is created from the boiling water, which is used to turn a turbine.
The spinning turbine is connected to a generator.
A spinning generator creates electricity.
8. What are the fossil fuels? Where do they come from?
Coal Forms from the remains of plants that lived in swamps millions of years ago.
Oil Created when tiny marine organisms that accumulated on the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago
Natural Gas Created when tiny marine organisms that accumulated on the bottom of the ocean millions of
years ago

8. What products does oil make? What is another name for oil products?
Gasoline and Lubricants
Petroleum Products

9. What can we do to save our resources?
Reduce the use of nonrenewable resources by increasing the amount of renewable resources we use for things
such as electricity. (Solar, Wind, Tide, Hydroelectric)