Lesson 1

Energy in physics

Analogy with money

For energy, we can define some system and within the system (gabriel’s wealth), if we exchange
energy (money) between different types (wallet, investments, checking account), then the total
amt of energy (Gabriel’s wealth) doesn’t change. If smt from outside (Concordia pays Gabriel)
puts energy into the system (total wealth) will increase. If the system loses energy to smt outside
(buying a sandwich), the the total energy of the system (total wealth) will decrease

 Energy: Ability to do work

 Work: Transfer of energy

Work
 Work = force x distance
 If someone pushes a box across the floor, they are transferring energy into the box
 Example
o You lift a 1kg box up 2m. Another person holds a 1kg box without moving it for
an hour. You did work but the other person did not

Types of energy

 Chemical energy
o Energy stores in certain chemicals or materials that can be released by chemical
reactions.
o Examples:
 The burning of wood, paper, coal, natural gas, or oil releases chemically
stored energy in the form of heat energy
 Charged electric batteries.

 Kinetic energy
o The energy an object has due to its motion
o Depends on the mass of the object and the velocity of the object
o Depends on the mass and on the square of the velocity
o This type of energy is called mechanical energy
 Thermal energy
o The energy associated with random molecular motions w/in any substance
o Increases of heat energy contained in any substance result in a temperature
increase, and, conversely, a decrease of heat energy produces a decrease of
temperature

 Potential energy
o Associated with the position of an object when some force is acting on it
o The most common example is gravitational potential energy
o The higher up the object, the more gravitational potential energy it has
o This is also a type of mechanical energy

 Electric energy
o Energy that is stored by charges (positive/negative) in their electric fields
o Nothing can be seen with the eye, but the energy is stored and can be released as
other forms of energy
o Example: In storm clouds, electrical energy is stored between the ground and
clouds which acquire opposite charges
 Electromagnetic radiation
o Also called light
o It can be visible or not (one small range of the spectrum is visible)
o Electromagnetic radiation is in the form of a wave that carries energy

 Nuclear/mass energy
o Einstein's theory of special relativity predicted that there is a correspondence
between mass and energy
o Mass can be converted to energy and energy can be converted to mass
o This is the important principal in looking at the energy associated with nuclear
reactions
o Einstein's famous equation tells us how much energy is stored in some amount of
mass

Units of energy

 Joule (J)
o The joule is the metric unit of energy. It has its fundamental definition in terms of
force and distance. One metric unit of force (the newton) acting through one
 metric unit of distance (the metre) is equivalent to the expenditure of one joule of
energy
o W=Fxd
 Force: Newtons
 D: Meters
 W: Joules
 
 British thermal unit (BTUs)
o Fuel and insulation. Defined based on the amount of heat energy which must be
given to a known amount of water to increase its temperature by a given amount.
One BTU is defined to be the amount of heat energy required to raise the
temperature of one pound of water by one degree of Fahrenheit
 
 Calorie (c)
o Like the Btu, this is defined in terms of the heating of water. It is the amount of
energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by one degree Celsius,
or the amount of energy given off when one gram of water cools by one degree
Celsius
o In North America, when you see energy stored in food as calories, this is actually
kilocalories by the above definition
 
 Electron-volt (eV)
o A favourite of particle physics. This is a very small amount of energy which is
useful when working with tiny charged particles (like electrons). It is the amount
of energy an electron gains if accelerated by a 1-volt electric potential
Lesson 2
Energy transfer

 Energy flow
o Energy can be transformed from one type to another
o There can be many energy transfers
 
Example
Guy starts from rest and pushes a box across the floor until he is moving quickly
 
 The box had 0 kinetic energy initially, and later, it had some kinetic energy
 Simple energy flow:
o Applied force: work done on box -> Kinetic energy
 
Example with more complete energy flow:
 Energy produced by sun (nuclear energy) => light (electromagnetic energy) => plant
photosynthesis (chemical energy) => person eating food (chemical energy) => person
applies force to push a box (kinetic energy)

Law of conservation of energy

 Law of conservation of energy: Total energy in an isolated region (or "system") cannot
change
 Isolated system: Energy can neither enter nor escape the system
o Doesn't mean we always have the same type of energy. Total amt must stay the
same
  The total amt of energy is conserved, it can be transferred from one form to another, but
not created or destroyed
 
Example 1
Lightbulb attached to a battery in a perfectly insulated (=> no heat or light can get out) opaque
box
 What is the energy flow?
o Chemical energy => Electrical energy => Thermal energy => Electromagnetic
energy
 Where does the energy go?
o Decrease in chemical energy
o Increase in thermal energy and Electromagnetic energy
 
Example 2
Lightbulb attached to a battery in an open box
 What is the energy flow?
o Chemical energy => Electrical energy => Thermal energy => Electromagnetic
energy
 Where does the energy go?
o Decrease in chemical energy
o Increase in thermal energy and electromagnetic energy
o System is not isolated so we don't have conservation of energy
 
 There is no energy "disappearing" in either examples
 In a closed system energy is conserved, if it is not closed energy is escaping or entering
the system
 The only true closed system is the entire universe (but we can come close)

Power
 The rate at which energy is consumed or produced (amount of energy per time)
o Metric unit is watts (W) which is joules per second (s)
 60 watts = 60 joules per second => each second, 60 joules of energy come
out of a 60 watt lightbulb
 Power = Energy/Time
 
Example 1
Appliances that heat up tend to be the highest power. A hairdryer is approximately 1500W. How
much energy is used by a hairdryer in 5 minutes?
1500J/s x 5mins x 60s = 450,000J = 450kJ
How does that compare to a TV (a TV is about 20W)?
20J/s x 5mins x 60s = 6,000J = 6kJ
 
Example 2
Imagine a motorcycle accelerates from a stop sign to a speed of 50km/h. There is power being
produced and power being consumed. Explain in terms of energy increase and decrease.
Produced: Decrease in chemical energy (gas)
Consumed: Increase in kinetic energy (motorcycle and rider) and thermal energy

Lesson 3
Thermodynamics
First law of thermodynamics
 The change in internal energy of a system equals the net heat transfer into the system
minus the net work done by the system
o This is the same as the principle of conservation of energy
 
Example of the first law
 The system is the engine of my car. I'm going to have heat input into the system. This is
from burning gas and when you have that combustion, heat is released, so this is your
heat input. We have output in terms of some other heat, as well, because the engine
radiates heat, and the work done by the engine. So I have heat input into the system from
the fuel combustion, and then I have work done by the system and I also have some heat
leaving through the hood radiating out the car
 There is some amount of heat in and then there's some that's transferred into heat out and
work done. Can't get more heat out and work done by the system than the amount of heat
energy I put in
 
Second law of thermodynamics
 Deals with the direction taken by a spontaneous process
 Many processes occur spontaneously in one direction only---that is, they are irreversible
 
Example #1 of the second law
 We have a cold piece of metal and a hot piece of metal. If I stick them together so they're
touching each other, what I get is heat transfer from the hot piece into the cold piece until
eventually they're the same temperature
  If this is an isolated system, the total amt of energy does not change, it's just the hot gets a
little colder and the cold gets a little warmer, but the total amount of energy is the same.
 However, if I took two pieces of metal that were the same temperature and stuck them
together, I wouldn't spontaneously get one getting hot and the other getting cold, even
though this wouldn't go against the first law of conservation of energy. However, the
second law talks about the direction in which these processes can happen spontaneously

 
Example #2 of the second law
 Two cars are driving, then someone hits the brakes, so the car slows down, the brakes
heat up, you lose energy in the form of heat

 
Example #3 of the second law
 Imagine a compressed bottle of air and you shoot some air out of this bottle, and then you
get the air distributing uniformly
 

 
In all of the cases, you can have energy being conserved, you can have the first law of
thermodynamics being intact, but you see these spontaneous processes can only happen in one
direction
 
Second law of thermodynamics
 Heat (or energy) transfer occurs spontaneously from higher to lower temperature bodies,
but never in reverse
 
Example #1
 Water is warmer than the ice. Spontaneous energy transfer from the water to the ice. Ice
warms up and melts, and the water cools down
 
Entropy (restating the second law of thermodynamics)
 A measure of the disorder (or randomness) of a system
 Box of balls ordered in a specific way

 As I mix up the balls, there is less order. This is the idea of energy. If i have more order,
that's lower entropy. If i have less order, that's high entropy

 
Second law of thermodynamics (again)
 In an isolated system, the entropy (randomness, disorder) of the system increases over
time
o This is not a new second law, it is just another way to express it
 
Example #2: diffusion
 Dropping a sugar cube into a glass of water. Eventually, and spontaneously, the sugar
cube dissolves and you get the sugar distributed through the solution. In this case, what
we have is some amount of entropy before and after, and so what we see is, when I have
 the sugar in its cube form and the water that's more ordered than when I have the sugar
dissolved throughout the water
 
So what?
 Since the total entropy of a system cannot decrease, this limits the amount of useful
energy available
o Initially, the system is more ordered, energy stored in the battery and cool box
o Later, there is less energy in the battery and there is more thermal energy (random
motion of molecules) in the box
o We can't put the energy back into the battery
o The total energy of the system is the same, but there is less useful energy
 

What is the second law of thermodynamics?

 The entropy, or disorder, of a closed system is always increasing
o Measure of disorder or chaos in the universe
o The more entropy we generate, the less energy is left over to do useful work
 Concept of the arrow of time tells you which direction time is travelling in
o Ex: If a process generates entropy, it will happen spontaneously and will be
irreversible unless you input more energy
o When I pour cream on my coffee, I wouldn't be surprised to see the two liquids
mixing and becoming more disordered over time. I would, however, be surprised
if the cream and coffee separated again
o An ice cube in coffee will melt and become a more disordered liquid. Under
those conditions, it cannot spontaneously reform itself back into an ice cube
 A spontaneous process generates entropy and involves heat moving from a hotter body to
a colder body
 A refrigerator doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics bc it's not a closed,
isolated system. We are continually inputting energy in the form of electricity to try and
keep the inside of the refrigerator cold at the expense of the surrounding environment. If
we turned off the electricity, then eventually the air inside the refrigerator would come
into thermal equilibrium with the surrounding environment
 
 Example of balls in box:
If you think about entropy statistically, you could think about it in terms of a puzzle where you
have to figure out how many combinations there are of putting three balls into three boxes.
Well, there's 10.
In three cases you'll have three balls in one of the boxes.
There's one where there's a ball in every box.
And the other six will have them all spread out to a different degree.

Heat engines
Mechanical equivalent of heat
 The heat energy released by burning a single match is about the same amount of energy
required to lift a pint of beer up to the top of Montreal's tallest building
 Burning a match releases some amount of thermal energy
 We must capture this heat energy and convert it to mechanical energy. This is smt we do
frequently

 
Energy content of fuel
 When we burn hydrocarbons, heat energy is released through 2 chemical reactions
 This leaves us with water, carbon dioxide, and thermal energy
 The first chemical reaction is carbon, from the material, combining with oxygen, from the
air, and together they combine and give us carbon dioxide and heat energy

 The second reaction is hydrogen and oxygen combining to form water and heat energy

 
A heat engine
 Any device that can take energy from a warm source and convert a fraction of this heat
energy to mechanical energy
  It relies on a temperature difference between the heat source (hot) and the heat sink (cold)
 

 I have a coal furnace. I'm burning coal, which releases thermal energy. The heat engine
takes some of this energy and converts it into mechanical energy, so that there's a work
output. The idea of a heat engine is it uses this heat source energy, a fraction of this
energy to be converted into work, into mechanical energy
 
Efficiency
 The efficiency of a heat engine tells us how much of the input heat energy is turned into
useful mechanical work
 Ex: If for every 1000 J of energy put in to the heat source, 50 J is converted to
mechanical energy, the efficiency is:

 It is not physically possible to get 100% of the heat energy converted to mechanical
energy in a heat engine
 As a result of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it is not possible to turn all of the input
energy into mechanical energy
 French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot proved that the best efficiency possible by
a heat engine is:
 o Tcold is the temperature of the cold sink
o Thot is the temperature of the heat source
o The bigger difference between hot and cold, the better the efficiency
o Note: This is a limit based on the laws of physics, not on how good we are at designing
and building heat engines
o Note: We must use the kelvin temperature scale which is relative to absolute zero (-273
degrees Celsius)
 When we look at the Kelvin scale, we recall that zero Kelvin and then each degree
Kelvin is equal to one degree Celsius. So, 0 degrees Celsius is equal to +273
Kelvin. To go from Celsius to Kelvin, we need to add 273
 
Example
 Typical temperatures in a coal fired electric power plant might be 825 K in the boiler
(source) and use a cold water cooling tower (sink) at 300 K. What is the best efficiency
that could ever be possible in this type of power plant?
T cold 300
E(best) = 1− x 100 %=1− x 100 %=64 %
T hot 825
If I build the perfect heat engine to take thermal energy from my coal furnace at 825 Kelvin, use
a cold sink at 300 Kelvin, the best efficiency I can get is 64%. If I produce 1000 joules of energy
by burning my coal, then I can get a max of 640 J of energy, mechanical work, done by this heat
engine

Generation of electricity

Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867)

 After discovering that currents can produce magnetic fields, people experimented to see
if magnetic fields could produce currents
 Faraday was trying to produce a current with a magnetic field but it was not working
 He noticed that current was produced for a short time when the current producing the
magnetic fields was switched on or off
 Faraday deduced that it could be changing magnetic fields that produce currents
 He did a series of experiments to investigate
 
Faraday's experiments
  When opening and closing the switch, there is a blip of current
 

 
 If I take the coil and push it in or out of the magnetic field, you get a little bit of current
while the magnetic field is changing

 As the magnetic field inside the coil is changing, we get a current

 
Thus, if I have a coil of wire, if I have a steady magnetic field, nothing happens. However, if I
change that magnetic field inside the coil of wire, so I turn it on or off, or change how strong it
is, or move the magnetic field into the coil area or away, then that's when I get a current being
produced in that coil of wire
 
Faraday's law of induction
 Describes how changing magnetic fields through a wire coil results in an electrical
current through that coil
 
Electrical generator

 
 Through the process of electrical induction, mechanical energy can be transformed into
electrical energy
 By turning the wire loop (which takes mechanical energy) the magnetic field passing
through the loop changes which generates a current (electrical energy)
 
Generation of electricity
 Most of the electricity we use is from a conversion of mechanical energy to electrical
energy using a generator
 The mechanical energy can come from many sources
o Ex: burning fossil fuels, turn turbines, wind, water
 
Energy 101: Electricity generation
 The energy we need to create electricity must first be mined, harnessed, or collected from
the earth
 Some of these resources are finite, including fossil fuels like coal and oil, but others are
unlimited like solar or wind power
 For every energy source, a chemical or mechanical process is required to turn it into
usable electricity
 Today, the majority of America's electricity comes form thermal power plants.
 Fuels like coal, natural gas, biomass, and uranium are used to heat water until it produces
steam which powers a turbine and generates electricity. That steam turns propeller-like
 blades around a rotor inside the turbine. This turning rotor connects to a main shaft which
spins magnets with a coil inside
 It's the generator inside the turbine that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy
and creates electricity
 Steam is an efficient method of producing electricity bc the water can be recycled and
reused as it changes back and forth between liquid and gaseous states
 Transporting electricity from the power plant to your home is an entirely different
process. Current technology cannot cost-effectively store large amts of electricity so
significant challenges exist when it comes to transferring that electricity across long
distances
 Just enough electricity has to be generated to meet demand at all times and be transmitted
through power line to reach your light switch
 Too much or too little power can crash the transmission system and cause a blackout
 That's why a complex mix of logistics, management, and infrastructure is needed to
transmit electricity from power generators to consumers
 The electricity grid is also known as the grid
 The North American electricity grid is actually made of 4 large grid systems.
o Western grid
o Eastern grid
o Texas grid
o A grid covering the Canadian province of Quebec
 These independent regional networks of power plants and transmission lines carry
electric energy at high voltage w/in their area to local utilities
 There are very limited links between the 4 grids, which means electricity generates from
a wind turbine in West Texas cannot reach an apartment building in New York City
 For electricity to move through one of the four grids, its voltage must first be increased
by a device called a transformer
 Then, the electricity can travel long distances across high-voltage transmission lines
 These high voltage line are generally strung between giant metal towers. They stretch for
miles from power plants to local substations in each neighbourhood
o These substations' job is stepping down electric voltages from levels as high as
756,000 volts close to the 110 volts you use in your home
 The electricity from the power line on your street passes through another transformer
which steps down the voltage once more and then it travels along the line into your house
 From there, the electricity enters your breaker box, and it is then distributed to light
sockets and outlets
Lesson 4
Energy consumption

Energy use per capita

 Total energy used in a country per year/number of people living in the country
 Amount of energy used per person varies greatly from country to country
 In general, wealthier countries use more energy per person
 Approximately 20% of the world's population live in highly developed countries
 These countries account for 60% of the world's energy use

 
 
Energy use per capita: GDP
 

 
 Low GDP per capita => low energy use per capita
 High GDP per capita => higher energy use per capita
 
Total energy consumption: Region
 

 As a general trend, in all world regions, an increase in the amount of energy, total energy,
consumption in each region
 Asia pacific region had the most notable change
 
Total energy consumption: By country
  When you have more people even if the amt of energy per person is a little bit lower,
total energy use is affected a lot
 Once you have more people using energy, the country uses more energy even if the use
per person is lower
 
Energy use per capita

 Shows a type of energy flow

 Right side: Where the energy is being consumed
o Residential, commercial, industrial, transportation
o Roughly even split between the 4 in the US
o The exact number regarding how energy is consumed varies from country to
country.
o In general, developed countries have similar distributions as shown here for the
US
 Left side: How energy is being produced
o Varies more for each country and what resources they have available
 
Projected: world
 
 Projections for world energy consumption show an increase overall
 OECD => higher income countries => more stable in amount of total energy use
Non-OECD => developing countries => predicted to have larger growth in total energy use =>
steeper increase
 

 
 Projections for world energy consumption show an increase overall
  OECD countries (mostly considered highly developed) show a slower rate of growth than
non-OECD countries
 
Projected: Canada
 Evolving policies
 The premise of the scenario is that action to reduce the GHG (greenhouse gas) intensity
of our energy system continues to increase at a pace similar to recent history, in both
Canada and the world
 

 
 Current policies
 The premise of the current policies scenario is that there is generally no additional action
to reduce GHGs beyond those policies in place today, implying relatively higher global
demand for fossil fuels and less adoption of low-carbon technologies

Renewable and non-renewable energy

Definitions
 The non-renewable resources are those that could be exhausted within a relatively short
time as a result of our exploiting them
 The renewable resources can never be consumed to completion
 
Non-renewable resources
 Fossil fuels: Coal, oil, natural gas
o Can be depleted on a time scale of around 100s of years
o Actually being produced all the time but on a time scale of 100s of millions of
years (way too slow)
o Used faster than it can be produced which is why it's a non-renewable resource
 Uranium 235
o Used for nuclear fission power generation
o Could be depleted over several decades if used much more vigorously than they
are now
 Geothermal energy
 o Thermal energy we get from inside the earth
o The lifetime of geothermal sites varies from site to site
o Partially renewable
 
Renewable resources
 Based on solar energy:
o Direct sunlight
o Wind
o Hydroelectric (evaporation, condensation cycle)
o Ocean currents
o Ocean thermal
o su
 Limited only by the lifetime of the sun
 The rate does not affect the lifetime of the source
 
Renewable resources
 Not based on thermal energy:
o Geothermal: Can be locally depleted but will renew over around 100s of years.
Half renewable half non renewable
o Tidal: Comes from gravitational energy between the earth and the moon

Fossil fuel use

Fossil fuel energy consumption (% of total)

 
 What % of country's total consumption of energy is from fossil fuels
 Unshaded: No data is available
 Canada is lower bc there is a lot of hydroelectric energy
 
Fossil fuel energy consumption
 
  In highly developed countries the percent of fossil fuel consumption is decreasing
 
Trends in coal consumption

 In OECD countries coal consumption has been in decline

o Almost 40% since its peak in 2007
 Coal use in Asia (mostly China) steeply increasing since early 2000s
o Starting to plateau now perhaps starting to decrease
 
Relative coal consumption
  Consumption dominated by Asia (also driven by size of population) => specifically
China
 European share of consumption has drastically decreased
 
Trends in oil consumption

 Most regions are starting to plateau

 Asia still increasing, as is total world consumption
 COVID: 2020 (all regions show drop)
 
Trends in natural gas consumption
  Most regions seeing increased consumption
 COVID: 2020 (all regions show drop)
 
 
Fossil fuel trends

 Overall consumption increasing

 Almost all countries are at least 50% dependent on fossil fuels
 Although the amount of fossil fuel used varies by:
o Region
o Type of fuel
 But the overall consumption of petroleum (oil), coal, and natural gas are on the rise
 o With the exception of the very recent past for coal

Renewable energy consumption

Renewable energy (% of total energy use)

 

 
 Renewable energy sources includes hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, bioenergy,
wave, and tidal. It does not include traditional biofuels, which can be a key energy source
especially in lower-income settings
 
Alternative & nuclear energy (% of total energy use)
 
 
 Alternative energy is becoming more popular
 There is a strong link between a country's income and the use of alternative energy
 
Canada and the world

 
 The vast majority of renewable energy produced in Canada is hydroelectricity production
 Wind and solar used for production of electricity
 Biomass use is dominated by wood burning in the pulp and paper industry
 
 
Share of total
  Although renewable energy fraction is increasing, it is still a very small fraction of total
consumption
 
 
Electricity generation: Canada

 
 Canada's main energy consumption is fossil fuels
 However, electrical power generation is mostly hydroelectric (55%)
 A percentage increase is projected for
o Natural gas
o Wind
 o Solar
 A percentage decrease is projected for
o Nuclear
o Coal (big change)
o Hydro (small change)
 

 For non-hydrorenewable substantial growth is projected

 Almost double if all sources are considered
Lesson 5
Introduction: Fossil fuels

Fossil fuels include:

 Oil
 Coal
 Natural gas
 
Fossil fuel energy consumption

 Progression of fossil fuel energy consumption as a function of time

o Fossil fuel energy consumption as a function of time
o Major contributors: China, USA, India, Russia
o Lower: Canada
o Consumption is still growing in India and China
o Plateauing in Russia, USA, and Canada
 
Fossil fuels: Coal
 A black, combustible solid composed mainly of carbon, water, and trace elements found
in Earth's crust; formed from ancient plants that lived millions of years ago
 
Fossil fuels: Oil
 A thick, yellow to black, flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture found in Earth's crust;
formed from the remains of ancient microscopic aquatic organisms
 
Fossil fuels: Natural gas
 A mixture of energy-rich gaseous hydrocarbons (primarily methane) that occurs, often
with oil deposits, in Earth's crust
Fossil fuels 101

 A term used to describe a group of energy sources that were formed from ancient plants
and organisms during the carboniferous period (approximately 360 to 268 million years
ago)
 At that time, the land was covered with swamps, filled with organisms and plants. As
they died, they sank to the bottom of swamps and oceans and over millions of years
started decomposing under layers of sand, clay, and other minerals
 Different kinds of fossil fuels formed depending on the combination of organic matter,
temperature, time, and pressure conditions while decomposing
 3 major types of fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas
o Coal was formed from ferns, plants, and trees which hardened due to pressure and
heat

o Oil was formed from small organisms like zoo plankton and algae, where pressure caused
the more complex organic matter to decompose

o Natural gas was formed by the same process as oil, only it was exposed to more heat and
pressure causing it to further decompose and turn into a gaseous form
 Fossil fuels are sought-after energy sources bc they have a high energy density
 They are the world's dominated energy source

 Have a variety of applications from electricity production to transport fuel

 Can also be used to make a variety of common products from plastics to cosmetics to
even some medicines
 Powered industrialization in history and even today
 Can be an abundant and cheap, or in some cases, a scarce and expensive form of energy
depending on geographic location
o Bc of this, geopolitical issues arise due to scarcity caused by the natural
geographic allocation of these highly valuable resources
 Considered non-renewable bc they take millions of years to form
 The gradual depletion of the most accessible fossil fuel reserves have forced companies
to develop technologies for extracting more challenging or unconventional reserves
o In many cases, this means additional safety and environmental concerns as well as
higher costs
 Fossil fuels are also the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes
climate change
 Their production also causes environmental and human health issues
o Triggered society to look at other sources of energy that are more environmentally
sustainable and renewable
Coal
Coal reserves

 Mostly distributed in the northern hemisphere

 Most abundant fossil fuel
 If we look at the total amt of verified coal reserves, this could last us about 200 years at
the current rate of coal consumption
 Running out of coal is not the main issue regarding how much coal we're using and how
much we should be using in the future
 There is more coal that we know about which is too expensive to access (e.g. km
underground)
 The bar graph shows the % of proved recoverable coal resources as of 2013 but it hasn't
changed significantly since then
 
Coal mining: Surface
 Used for shallow coal deposits (mine is close to the surface)
 Soil and rock above the coal deposit (called overburden) is removed
 Exposed coal is then extracted
 Strip mining: Long narrow strips are mined.
o Long tracts of land where the overburden is removed exposing the coal, and then
the coal can be removed, and the miners move to a parallel strip of land where the
overburden from that is removed, and then that is deposited on the previously
exposed one
 So each time you move to a parallel strip of land, you remove the
overburden and put it back on top of where you extracted the coal from the
strip next to it
 Open pit mining: Dig a giant hole and extract the coal
o Dig a giant hole, remove the overburden that way, and then having the coal
exposed and extracted from the ground that way
 Mountain top removal mining: The top of a mountain is removed to expose the coal
 o If you have coal in a mountain top and deposit the overburden in a valley next to
the mountain
 
Coal mining: Subsurface
 Coal is located deeper and it's harder to access
 Used when deposits are deeper and harder to access
 Series of tunnels and shafts are used to remove coal underground
 More expensive
 More dangerous for the workers
 Less surface impact bc on the surface, you have these entryways into the shafts and
tunnels as opposed to removing overburden in strip mining or open-pit mining, or
removing the top of a mountain
 
Safety
 90,000 American miners died during the 20th century due to accidents
 Practices today are much safer than in the early 20th century, however there are still risks

 Example: 1992 Westray Mine Disaster in Nova Scotia

o Explosion in an underground coal mine
o 26 miners killed
 
Mining: Environmental impact
 We are considering mining, not burning fossil fuels
 From environment Canada: "Environment Canada works to address the environmental
impacts of mining. Waste rock and mine tailings can result in releases to water and soil.
Acidic drainage and the leaching of metals from the mine workings and mine wastes may
occur at metal mines. Acidic drainage can cause significant impacts on water quality and
aquatic ecosystems"
 Acid mine drainage: Pollution caused when sulfuric acid and dissolved materials such as
lead, arsenic, and cadmium wash from coal and metal mines into nearby lakes and
streams
o For all types of mining, not just coal
 Destruction of surface vegetation and wildlife habitat
 Mountain top removal mining
  Destructive form of surface mining
 Common in the Appalachian Mountains of the US
 "Removing coal by levelling a mountain. When coal is removed from mountains, the
geography of a region can change. The top of a mountain above a coal seam is scaped off
and dumped into the adjacent valley. Next, the coal seam is removed. If another seam lies
lower in the mountain, the process is repeated. Streams are buried, lakes are created and
destroyed, and large amounts of sediment are washed downstream as bare earth is
eroded"
 
Coal use in Canada
 In Canada, approximately 50% of the coal produced is exported to other countries
 The other half is used for the production of electricity

Oil and petroleum products: Part 1

Oil
 Petroleum
o Refers to crude oil (the stuff you get from the ground)
o Also sometimes used to refer to petroleum products which are the result of a
refining process
  Compared to coal:
o More versatile
o Easier to transport => can be transported in pipelines
Cleaner burning => fewer emissions of pollutants and CO2
 
Petroleum refining
 Crude oil is separated into a variety of products based on their different boiling points
 After being heated, they are separated in a fractionation tower, which is about 30m tall
 The lower the boiling point, the higher the compounds rise in the tower
 
Crude oil *Proved reserves

 
  Proved means that there's a greater than 90% confidence that it's recoverable using
existing technology
 These numbers could go up if technology for recovering oil changes, or it could also go
up if the technology for exploration oil is improved
 Darker: More approved reserves
 No dependence on one part of the world => spread throughout the world
 
Structural traps
 The most important of several kinds of structural traps is shown

 These traps form when sedimentary rock strata buckle, or fold upward
 Oil and natural gas seep through porous reservoir rock such as sandstone and collect
under nonporous layers such as a roof of shale
o This might be a type of rock, like sandstone (or something porous), and what
happens is the oil can move through this porous rock and actually float on top of
any water there as well. The oil rises up until it reaches a rock which is non-
porous, like shale, and gets trapped from moving up any farther, which results in a
collection of oil.
 Natural gas accumulates on top of the oil, which in turn floats on groundwater
 Oil sits on top of water bc it's less dense and natural gas sits on top of the oil
 Drill down through the shale into the oil reservoir
Video: Reservoir rock

 Organic wastes are composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen

 The majority, resulting from the death of living creatures, animal or vegetal, are generally
destroyed and digested by bacteria. However, certain are deposited on the beds of
enclosed seas, lagoons, lakes, or other aquatic environments poor in oxygen
o Protected from bacterial action
 Organic matter mixes with sediment, sand, clay, salt and accumulates in successive layers
over millions of years.
 The most ancient layers are buried under the more recent
o Pushed down by their own mass
o Plate tectonics disturbing the earth's mantle breaks them up and takes them deeper
into the Earth's crust
o The further the sedimentary layers subside, the more the temperature and pressure
increase
o Chemical reactions eliminate the nitrogen atoms and the remains of oxygen. They
leave only molecules from carbon and hydrogen which constitute the liquid and
gaseous hydrocarbons.
 These hydrocarbons are to be found at the heart of a rock called the source
rock
 The hydrocarbons move around below ground bc being lighter than water,
they tend to make their way towards the surface of the earth. If nothing
stops them, they will escape and ooze out onto the surface or solidify into
bitumen, losing their volatile constituents. However, if during the course
of their migration, the hydrocarbons meet an impermeable layer (called a
seal or cap rock), they are trapped below in the microscopic interspecies
and cracks of a rock called the reservoir rock
 In this reservoir rock, the gaseous part of the hydrocarbons rises
slowly above the oil, pushing the water below. Several tens of
millions of will a geologist discover the existence of this trap and
consequently find an oil or gas field

Video: Seismic 3D imaging

 To spot hydrocarbon accumulations, several methods are available to the geophysicist

 Seismic consists of making a veritable echography of the substratum
 A shock on the surface of the ground produces sound waves which are refracted and
reflected below the ground surface
 As they pass from one layer to another, their propagation is modified. The geophysicist,
with the aid of very sensitive microphones called geophones, listens to, and records the
wave echo from the surface
 Reconnaissance of the land being impracticable at sea, use is systematically made of
seismic methods. As a ship moves freely in all directions, the seismic measurements are
easier to obtain at sea than on land
 The seismic recordings collected by the geophysicist are analyzed by highly powerful
computers. Thus, images are obtained in 2D or 3D of the layers constituting the
 substratum. This seismic imaging is analyzed to find out if certain layers are likely to
contain hydrocarbons

Video: Oil drilling

Setting up/installation
 Geologists and physicists have agreed on the existence of a "prospect" => a potential
field. In order to find out if hydrocarbons are indeed trapped in the reservoir rock, we
must drill to hit them
 Bearing in mind the knowledge acquired about the substratum and the topography of the
land, the best position for the installation of the drilling equipment is determined
 Generally, it is vertically above the point of maximum thickness of the geological layer is
suspected of containing hydrocarbons. The drillers then make a hole in conditions that are
sometimes difficult
 Of small diameter (from 20 to 50 cm) this hole will generally go down to a depth of
between 2000 to 4000 meters. Exceptionally, certain will exceed 6000 meters. One of
them has even exceeded 11,000 meters
 Certain fields can be buried at a depth equivalent to the height of 12 Eiffel towers
 
The drilling rig
 The derrick is the visible part of the drilling rig. It is a metal tower several tens of meters
high. It is used to vertically introduce the drill strings down the hole. These drill strings
are made up of metallic tubes screwed end to end
 

1. Hoist support
2. Drilling rig
3. Mobile hoist
4. Hook
5. Injection head
6. Mud injection column
7. Rotating feed table for the drill train
8. Draw-works
9. Engine
10. Mud pump
11. Quagmire
  They transmit a rotating movement (rotary drilling) to the drilling tool (the drill bit) and
help circulate a liquid called "mud" (bc of its appearance) down to the bottom of the well
 The drilling rig works like an enormous electric hand-drill of which the derrick would be
the body, the drill strings the drive, and the drilling tool the drill bit

1. Drill train
2. Cement retainer
3. Tubing
4. Drill stem
5. Drilling bit
 The most usual tool is an assembly of the tree cones -- from which comes the name "tri
cone" -- in very hard steel, which crushes the rock
 Sometimes, when the rock being drilled is very resistant, a single-block tool encrusted
with diamonds is used. This wears down the rock by abrasion
 Through the drill pipes, at the extremity of which the drill bit rotates, a special mud is
injected, which the mud engineer prepares and controls. This mud cools the drill bit and
consolidates the sides of the borehole
 Moreover, it avoids a gushing of oil, gas, or water from the layer being drilled, by
equilibrating the pressure. Finally, the mud cleans the bottom of the well. As it makes its
way along the pipes, it carries the rock fragments (cuttings) to the surface
 The geologist examines these cuttings to discover the characteristics of the rocks being
drilled and to detect eventual shows of hydrocarbons
 
Core sampling
 The cuttings, fragments of rock crushed by the drill bit, are brought back up to the surface
by the mud. To obtain information on the characteristics of the rock being drilled, a core
sample is taken
 

1. Core sample
 2. An indication of the thickness of the layers
3. An indication of the nature of the rock
 The drill bit is replaced by a hollow tool called core sampler, which extract a cylindrical
sample of several meters of rock
 This core supplies data on the nature of the rock, the inclination of the layers, the
structure, permeability, porosity, fluid content, and the fossils present
 
The confrontation
 After having drilled a few hundred of meters, the explorers and drillers undertake
measurements down the hole called loggings, by lowering electronic tools into the well to
measure the physical parameters of the rock being drilled

1. Well tubing
2. Probe cable
3. Probe
4. 1st probe data recorder
5. 2nd probe data recorder
6. 3rd probe data recorder
7. Measurements logged by the data recorders
 These measures validate, or invalidate, or make more precise the hypotheses put forward
earlier about the rock and the fluids that they contain
 The log engineer is responsible for the analysis of the results of the various loggings. The
sides of the well are then reinforced by steel tubes screwed end to end
 These tubes called casings are cemented into the ground. They isolate the various layers
encountered
 
The test
 When hydrocarbons are found, and if the pressure is sufficient to allow them to come to
the surface naturally, the drillers do a flow check. The oil is allowed to come to the
surface during several hours of several days through a calibrated hole
 1. Hydrocarbons rising under pressure
2. Draw works
3. Manometer measuring the effluent pressure
 The quantity recovered is measured, as are the changes in pressure at the bottom of the
well. In this way, a little knowledge is gained about the probable productivity of the field
 
The assessment
 If the field seems promising, the exploration team ends the first discovery well and goes
on to drill a second, even several others, several hundred or thousand meters away
 In this way, the exploration team is able to refine its knowledge about the characteristics
of the field
 The decision to stop drilling is made only when all these appraisal wells have provided
sufficient information either to give up the exploration or to envisage future production
 
The different types of platform

1. Fixed platform
2. Self-elevating platform
3. Semi-submersible platform
4. Dynamic positioning vessel
Oil and petroleum products: Part 2

Drilling
 Once an oil reserve is discovered, drilling commences
 70% of oil production is onshore
 30% of oil production is offshore
o Unclear how much unproved reserve there is, particularly offshore
 More expensive and harder to access

 Fairly steady over the last decade

 
How long will the oil last?
 Short answer: We don't know
 Things that will make it last for more time:
o New oil reserves are still being discovered
o Technology for oil extraction is improving
 Oil that was too hard to access for technological reasons, or environmental
reasons, or wasn't worth extracting financially is now worth extracting as
technology for extraction improves
o Technology for oil detection is improving
 We can find more oil
 Things that will make it last for a short time:
o World energy demand is increasing
 Using more energy across all sectors
o Demand increasing faster than the growth of alternative energy (wind, solar)
o 80% of current production is from reserves discovered in 1973
o Most of these reserves are in decline
 Getting smaller and smaller at a rate that is faster than we could discover
new ones
 Short term:
 o We will not run out of oil
 Long term:
o We need to find an alternative
o Oil supplies could eventually run out
o There are other major problems with the use of fossil fuels making them not
viable for the long term
 
Crude oil use in Canada
 Approximately 50% of the crude oil produced is exported to other countries
 The other half is used over all sectors (transportation, industry, residential, commercial)

Natural gas

Proved reserves of natural gas

 Reserves does not equate to production => just bc it's there doesn't mean it's being
produced
 Darker = more proved
 
Gross natural gas production
 It is the US and Russia that produce the most natural gas
 
Natural gas
 Natural gas exploration and extraction is similar to what was described in the previous
sections
 When we talked about structural traps, we mentioned that natural gas is located above the
oil bc it's less dense
 Natural gas use has been increasing:
o Electricity production
o For direct use, like heating, appliances, transportation
 Some of the reasons for increased use are:
o There have been improvements in the technologies for exploration and production
and the resource base has increased
o Relative to other fossil fuels (coal, oil), natural gas releases less harmful
combustion products per unit of energy produced
o There have been a number of new applications of natural gas such as motor fuel
for transportation that increase the demand bc there's more end products that use
natural gas
o On a BTU basis (i.e., per amount of energy), compared to oil and electric energy,
natural gas is a less costly source of energy
 
Cost of natural gas: Example 1
 Find the energy cost ratio of electricity to natural gas
 Assumption:
o Cost of N.G: $14.29/1000cu.ft
o Energy stored in N.G.: 1,035,000 Btu/1000cu.ft
o Cost of electricity: $0.123/kWh

 
 

o Electricity is 2.5 times more expensive than natural gas

o For applications that use heat (e.g., a water heater), natural gas can be much cheaper
o Keep in mind efficiencies, however:
 NG water heater is 50-80% efficient. So, of that energy, only 50-80% goes to
heating your hot water
 Electric water heater is 100% efficient. All the energy that is emitted by an
electric coil with current going through it goes into heating your hot water
 But how was electricity generated? Coal plant is 35% efficient
 For the most part, for home use, something like a hot water heater, natural gas is
quite a bit cheaper than electricity
 
Cost of natural gas: Example 2
 Find the energy cost ratio of gasoline to natural gas
 Assumptions:
o Cost of gasoline: $3.50/gal
o Energy stored in gasoline: 125,000 Btu/gal

 Gasoline is about twice as expensive in terms of how much energy you get per dollar
o This is why natural gas is becoming more popular in transport, it's found often in
public transport, buses, and taxis often run on natural gas
 
Natural gas use in Canada
 Energy industry: 34%
 Residential (18%)
 Commercial and institutional (13%)
 Industrial (22%)
 Generation of electricity (13%)
Tight resources

Tight resources
 Shale and tight resources are hydrocarbons (crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas
liquids) found in tight reservoirs

 These rocks with pores so small or poorly connected that the oil and natural gas cannot
flow through them easily
 Can be accessed using hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
 
Hydraulic fracturing

 A deep vertical well is drilled, with a horizontal hole bored into the rock layer of interest
 o A horizontal hole is burrowed through the layer of rock where your tight
resources are located
 Then, water is pumped into the well. The pressure breaks natural gas and other
hydrocarbons free from the shale
 The gas is then extracted from the wellhead at the top
 The well must be carefully lined where it crosses an aquifer (thin blue line near top) to
prevent contamination
 
Production in Canada

 Production grew from three billion cubic feet per day in 2000 to seven billion cubic feet
per day in 2013
o Approx. 50% of total in 2014
o Estimated 80% by 2035
 On the graph, starting in 2000, we had mostly conventional gas production, and then a
decrease in that with an increase in the amount of tight resources
 In the middle of the graph, around 2025, we have mostly tight resources and less
conventional
 Moving towards 2050, you have a decrease in everything but specifically a bigger
decrease in conventional resources where it's almost all tight and shale resources
 
Water concerns
 Fracking liquid is mix of water, sand, and various chemicals
 Concerns over drinking water contamination
 Concerns over contamination of ecosystems
 Wastewater is usually collected and stored in enclosed containers
 Wastewater is also pumped into deep saline aquafers
 Fracking liquid is not intentionally disposed of in surface water
Lesson 6
 Most forms of energy, including fossil fuels, is energy that came from the sun

Where does the sun come from?

Where does the energy of the sun come from?

 Every 1.5 millionths of a second, the Sun releases more energy than all humans consume
in an entire year
 Its heat influences the environment of all planets; dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and
comets in our solar system
 How does a big ball of hydrogen create all that heat?
o Short answer: It is big. It would take almost 1,000 Jupiters to fill up the sun
 
Nuclear fusion
o Held together by a lot of gravity => a lot of pressure inside of it. Pressure is so intense
and the density so great that the hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they meld
into a new element => helium
o This process, called nuclear fusion, releases energy while creating a chain reaction that
allows it to occur over and over again. That energy builds up.
Sun's core
o It gets as hot as 27 million degrees Fahrenheit in the sun's core. The energy travels
outward to a large area called the convective zone. Then, it travels to the photosphere,
where it emits heat, charged particles, and light
o That heat powers the chemical reactions that make life possible on Earth, allows gases
and liquids to exist on many planets and moons and causes icy comets to form fiery halos
o Those particles create a solar wind that pushes against the fabric of interstellar space
billions of miles away
o That light travels far out into the cosmos, just one star among billions
 

The sun's energy

The sun's energy

 The sun's energy is produced through nuclear fusion reactions
 The sun produces a vast amt of power in the form of light (or electromagnetic radiation)
 Once the light has travelled the 150 million km to Earth, the intensity of that light has
diminished to a tiny fraction of what it was at the surface of the sun
 
Light intensity
 A wave carries energy and momentum (true for all waves)
 Examples:
o Flat water is at rest until a wave arrives. Then the water starts to move (acquire
momentum and energy)
o The light from the sun can warm up your beer
 The amt of energy per unit of time delivered by a wave is called the power
  When we talk about intensity, we are talking abt the amt of power
 Also want to talk about that in terms of area:

 Same amt of light hitting his face but the magnifying glass focuses the rays on a smaller
area
 Intensity is the power delivered by the light, divided by the area
o The smaller the area, the more we can condense that light into one spot, the higher
the intensity
 We say the second has a higher intensity (which depends on the area)
 
 How does light intensity get lower as we move further away from the sun?

 As light travels in all directions away from the sun, it gets spread out over more area =>
the rays divert away from each other
 If we double the distance, the intensity gets four times smaller. If you triple the distance,
the intensity is 1/9th
 The same amount of energy spread over more area means a reduction in intensity
 For example: The earth is approximately 2.5 times as far away from the sun as Mercury
  This means that the light intensity at the Earth is only about 16% of the light intensity at
Mercury
 
The sun's light
 Composed of different wavelengths

 Graph shows wavelength distribution of solar radiation

o Dotted line: above the atmosphere
o Solid line: earth's surface
o They're different bc light gets absorbed as it passes through the atmosphere
o Leftmost part: ultraviolet region => shorter wavelength and invisible
o As we move to the right of the graph, the wavelength gets longer, we have the
visible band of light, and then passed that we have the infrared
o The most intense light is in the visible spectrum
 The sun's brightest in the visible part of the spectrum
 There is very little in the ultraviolet region and it decreases quite rapidly in
the infrared region
o Yet the total amt of light energy in the visible spectrum is approximately the same
as the total amount in the infrared. Essentially, there is more wavelengths in the
infrared. If you add up all that energy, it's about equal to the amt of energy in the
visible spectrum (even though the visible spectrum is brighter, it's a narrower
band)
 
Light at the surface of the earth
 Not all energy reaches the surface of the earth
 Some of the light is absorbed, reflects, or scattered atmospheric gases and clouds
 On a clear day, about 24% of the light energy makes it from the upper atmosphere to the
surface
 About 17% can be scattered through clouds
 
Energy at the surface of the earth

 The amt of energy arriving on the surface of the Earth is often called the "insolation"
 Map shows the average amt of insolation per spot on the surface of the earth
o Purple => more power
o Blue => less power
 Depends on amt of cloud cover on average, latitude (whether you're along the equator or
farther away from the equator)
 Here averages are shown but it varies season to season
 Note that Montreal is certainly not the largest recipient of surface solar energy

Solar thermal: 101

Solar thermal
 Used to describe a group of technologies that capture the heat energy from the sun and
use it for various forms of heating and the production of electricity
 For heating, solar thermal systems are referred to as passive or active
 o Passive systems are more basic and have no moving parts. They simply rely on
design features to enhance our ability to capture and use the sun's rays. Ex:
Greenhouse or a solar oven
o Active systems have mechanical components like fans or pumps to circulate heat
carrying fluids. These systems could be used for residential or commercial heating
 For electricity production, high temperature solar thermal systems called concentrated
solar power (CSP) use groups of mirrors to concentrate solar energy on a central
collector. This produces temperatures high enough to generate steam which turns a
turbine driving a generator to produce electricity
o Found in desert locations where space and sunlight are abundant
 Advantage of solar thermal energy production: It is a clean and renewable energy source
that uses a free form of fuel: the sun
 Most solar thermal systems are also low maintenance bc they use simple technologies
and in the case of passive systems, have no moving parts
 The nature of sunlight can cause problems for the use of solar thermal systems. Sunshine
is not a very concentrated source so it can take a large area to make a reasonable amt of
energy, voguing efficiency, and in some cases, land use concerns
 Sunshine is also intermittent and its availabiliyu is dependent on location and time
 CSP advantages:
o The technology to produce large-scale generation is an advantage for regions that
utilize centralized electricity distribution systems. In the past, this was an
advantage over solar PV systems. However, innovations in PV technologies are
challenging this notion
 CSP disadvantage:
o Installations are normally located in remote desert areas. Given that steam
turbines are required to produce electricity, water access are concerns for the
viability of the technology
o Transmission of electricity over long distances is expensive and can lead to
distribution losses
o Practical challenges such as upfront capital costs and awareness can also be
barriers to implementation of all forms of solar thermal technologies
Using solar energy directly

Active solar energy

 Taking electromagnetic energy and turning it into thermal energy to use it for smt
 An "active solar energy" system collects and absorbs the sun's energy, and uses pumps or
fans to distribute the collected heat
 Commonly used for water or space heating
 Approximately 8% of energy in the U.S is used to heat water
 

 Flat-plate collector
o Frequently used to capture the sun's energy
 Absorber surface (or sheet): painted black to absorb solar energy
 Fluid in tubes runs through the absorber sheet heating up
 Double layer glass allows solar radiation in and minimizes heat loss
 
  Heat exchanger
o Takes energy from fluid heated by solar collector and uses it to heat household
water (or wtv fluid) which heats up a coil, which is fed to the actual potable water
that you're using in your house. Essentially, we have hot fluid coming in from
your solar collector into your heat exchanger. It heats the water, loses thermal
energy, and then gets pumped as cooler water back to your collector to be re-
heated again
o In your heat exchanger, this water has now been heated up, you have cool water
being pumped from the water you're using (tank on the right). The potable water-
cooled water pumped into this now warmer heated water, it takes that thermal
energy and gets pumped back into your pressurized water tank
o Thermal energy being transferred from your collectors to your heat exchanger,
then that thermal energy is put into water that was cold, in your usable water,
heats that up, and puts it back into your usable water tank
o Taking thermal energy from your collectors and turning it into thermal energy of
the water you're going to use
 
Passive solar energy
 System of putting the sun's energy to use without requiring mechanical devices to
distribute the collected heat. It's based essentially on design, and design in a way that we
can maximize the benefits of the sun's energy
 Certain design features can enhance passive solar energy's heating potential
 Keys:
o Insulation
 We want good insulation so that if our house is cool in the summer and
outside is hot, we don't have a heat transfer into the house and the
converse in the winter. The insulation in walls, floors, and roofs, are
important to take into account
 Doors and windows designed for minimal heat transfer
o Collection
 In the northern hemisphere, the idea is to have large south-facing
windows. This will allow the sun's energy to come into the house and heat
it in the winter
  Overhang to optimize the amount of light entering by season. When the
sun is higher in the sky in the summer, the overhang will block the sun's
rays
 So, with the overhang and the large south-facing winters, in the summer
you are getting less sun into your house, heating it more in the winter
o Storage
 A way to store thermal energy
 Something massive to capture the thermal energy "thermal mass"
 Stone feature, water; anything that can hold the thermal energy
 A thermal mass absorbs heat and cools down slowly heating the
environment around it
 Ex: In the winter, you have a large mass being heated by the sun
inside your house. When the sun goes down, this is still warm as it
cools it radiates energy into the rest of the house

 Solar and thermal electricity production

Solar thermal electricity production

 Recall that if we concentrate light into a small area, the intensity increases
 This allows us to capture large amount of energy in a small area
 There is a shape called a parabolic surface for which all incoming parallel rays are
focused to the same point
  4 of the sun's rays and they all bounce off the parabolic shape and get focused at one
point. They all converge to one point. Very high intensity at that specific point. You can
heat smt at that point and it gets the energy that was spread out all throughout the
parabolic surface.
 
Solar thermal electricity production
 Using a series of parabolic reflecting surfaces the suns energy can be used to heat an oil
in a pipe to very high temperatures
 Setting up the parabolic surface in such a way that all the sun's rays come and hit the
surface and they're focused along the line (white shining line). This is a line where all the
focal points are. The energy that hits this whole parabolic surface is focused along the
line. Set up a pipe with oil flowing through it and it absorbs the energy from the sun and
it's turned into thermal energy. So, take all the energy that hits the surface and turn it into
thermal energy in this oil that flows along where the lights are focused on

 These oils can reach very high temperatures (up to 400 degrees Celsius) and you can use
that thermal energy
  Electric power is generated by using the sun to boil water to steam, which then is used to
drive an electric generator. The steam turns a turbine which is used in electrical
generators to produce electricity.
o Electromagnetic radiation => thermal energy => mechanical energy (to turn the
generator) => electrical energy
 

 Large-scale power plant using solar energy to create electricity by first turning it in to
thermal energy. A system to similar to parabolic surface. Series of mirrors each reflecting
their light to a single point. The intensity of the light is very high bc I'm taking all of the
light that hits this huge area and focusing it to one point => super high intensity light.
This gives us thermal energy, which heats water and turns into hot steam to turn a
turbine, which turns and gives mechanical energy to turn the generator which gives
electrical energy
o Electromagnetic energy => very intense electromagnetic energy => thermal
energy => mechanical energy => electrical energy

The future of solar power

 If you take the current output of a nuclear plant and compare that to just taking solar
panels and putting solar panels on the area used by the nuclear power plant, the solar
panels will generate more power than the nuclear plant
 1 square km is a million square meters and there's 1kW per square meter of solar energy
so on one square km, there is a gigawatt of solar energy.
 You could power the entire USA with about 150 to 200 square km of solar panels

Photovoltaic electricity production

Photovoltaic solar cells

 A device that takes electromagnetic energy (light) and turns it directly into electrical
energy (electricity)
 A wafer or thin film that is treated w/ certain metals so they generate electricity when
they absorb solar energy
 No pollution and minimal maintenance
 Low efficiency (15-18%): If we have 100J of electromagnetic radiation hitting one of
these photovoltaic cells, we only expect to get about 15J of energy
  Expensive, although price has declined drastically over the past decades
o $90/Watt (1975)
o $0.90/Watt (2012)
 Used on any scale (solar calculator, road signs, building)
 More economical than running electrical lines to rural areas
 Can be incorporated into building materials (for new structures or incorporated into
existing structure)
o Roofing shingles
o Tile
o Window glass
 

 
Solar photovoltaics 101

 Also called solar PV

 A technology that converts the sun's energy into direct current electricity by using
semiconductors
 When the sun hits the semiconductor within the PV cell, electrons are freed and form an
electric current
 Various semiconductor materials
o Most mainstream: Crystalline silicon
 Unlike solar thermal technologies, solar pv can only use direct sunlight which means that
when the sun doesn't shine, electricity is not produced
 Major advantage: transitions electricity generation from big centralized facilities to
smaller, decentralized production sites (like the roof of your house)
o Turns energy consumers into prosumers => people that produce and consume
their electricity
 Another advantage: Uses the most abundant, renewable, resource on earth
o 10,000 times more solar energy coming to the earth's surface than our global
annual fossil fuel demand
 Traditionally, concerns abt solar pv were about cost, intermittency, and efficiency
o Large-scale implementation and rapid cost declines have surfaced more complex
issues such as grid-compatibility, lack of solar industry expertise, and the use of
rare and precious metals that make up the cells
Photovoltaic electricity production

Global installed photovoltaic capacity

 Rapid growth over the recent years

 Capacity has increased over time

 Biggest increase: Asia pacific region
 China shows biggest change
 Canada is at the very bottom but it's increasing as well
 
Cost of electrical power plants
 Alternative power sources are becoming competitive with traditional power sources
 Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) refers to the estimates of the revenue required to
build and operate a generator over a specified cost recovery period. Essentially how much
needs to be charged in order for the plant to break even over its lifetime

 Average LCOE for India, US, China, Europe, Japan for different power generation plants
 
Solar resources
 

 Map of North America

 Canada: Low intensity of light
 Very high intensity light (high insulation) in USA on the west cost
 Dots = solar power plants
 
Electricity generation: Canada

 1% of electricity is being produced by photovoltaics

 Expected to grow by 3% in 2040
Net metering for solar power

 When sunlight hits the modules on a solar photovoltaic (PV) installation, the modules
convert the sun's energy into electricity that can be used to power your home
 Whether the electricity is being drawn from a PV installation of a utility company, your
home's power performance will stay the same
 The direct current (DC power) that the installation produces is wired into an inverter.
This inverter converts the DC power into an alternating current, better known as AC
power. This AC power is the standard electrical current used for powering most homes,
appliances, and luxuries throughout the world
 The electrical current then flows from the invertor to the home's electrical service panel
that feeds electricity into the household
 A tracking meter can keep track of the home's total electrical consumption
 During the day, if the solar system's production exceeds the houses electrical needs, the
excess electricity is fed back into the power grid
 When this occurs, you can observe the electrical meter spin backwards
 Most local gvts have a system of credits set in place that require utility companies to buy
this excess energy back
 In addition to reducing your electric bill, these credits can be sold to utilities. This
generates revenue to pay back the cost of your PV system, and eventually turn a profit
 At night, or anytime a house is using more electricity than a solar installation is
producing, the extra energy needed to power the house is pulled from the grid, as it
normally would be
 When you install a solar system on a home, the only noticeable difference you'll see is on
your electric bill -> pays for itself overtime
 Net metering makes sure you receive a credit on your power bills for the energy you put
back on the grid. This credit fairly compensates all kinds of energy users (small homes,
big businesses, schools, public buildings)
o Reduce the need for expensive, polluting power plants
 It all has to do w how much electricity your system generates and how much you use on a
daily, monthly, and annual basis
 Sometimes, customers produce more power than they use and send the surplus back into
the grid. Other times, they use more power than their solar panels can generate.
Depending on how much energy your system generates and your consumption, you may
end up with a charge or a credit in a given month at the normal. The credit you
accumulate in a given month can offset the charges you receive in another month => net
energy metering
 Every 12 billing months, you get a true up statement, that reconciles all the charges and
credits you received that year
Photovoltaic electricity production

Net metering
 In Quebec, you can feed your surplus power into the Hydro-Quebec grid in exchange for
credits in kilowatt-hours that will be applied to your electricity bill. Inversely, if you do
not generate enough power for your needs, you can draw electricity from the grid
 
Summary
 Sun is the largest source of energy
 Sun's energy can be used
o By direct transfer of light energy to thermal energy (either active or passive)
o By generating electricity (through thermal energy or directly)
 The cost of solar energy has been falling over the past few decades
 The amt of solar energy that can be harnessed depends on where on the planet you are
 Solar power generation has been grown rapidly
 In Canada, only about 1% of electricity generation is solar