"NOVA – Power Surge" Name__________________________________

Block: ___________
You can watch the video and read the transcript here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/power-surge.html
While watching the “NOVA: Power Surge” video, answer each of the following questions:

1. On average, how many electronic devices are there in each American home today?

2. What motivated Virgin Airlines billionaire Richard Branson to set up the “Carbon War Room”?

3. How much of the U.S.’s electricity is provided by coal?

4. When and how did coal first form?

5. Why is it problematic for us to burn fossil fuels?

6. What is the “wedge theory”, as proposed by Stephen Pacala of Princeton University?

7. What are the four categories of existing technology “wedges” that Pacala says already exist?

8. Name the Earth Challenge judge sitting next to Branson: ____________________________

9. How do submarines pull carbon dioxide out of the air exhaled by the people inside?

10. What percentage of our electricity is currently produced by fossil fuels? How much of our electricity
is produced by coal?

11. How does the carbon sequestration technology that is currently being tested at the natural gas power
plant in In Salah, Algeria work?
12. How much carbon does the average American produce each year?

13. How much does the average American family produce each year?

14. How much solar energy reaches the earth? How much are people currently using? Why aren’t we
using more?

15. How do photovoltaic solar cells work?

16. Which President put solar panels on the White House? Which President took them down?

17. What is Secretary Chu’s goal by 2035?

18. What are three of the possible solutions for powering our transportation needs?

19. What technology is Jay Keasling of the Joint BioEnergy Institute using to make biofuels? Why isn’t
this process ready to be used yet?

20. How much money does the National Archives save each year in energy costs since their retrofit?

21. How many years will it take to recover the costs of the upgrades at the National Archives?

22. If we replaces all 30 mpg cars with ________ mpg cars, that would be one wedge in the wedge game.

23. How many coal power plants would we have to replace with nuclear power plants to equal one wedge
in the wedge game?

24. There are several ways that energy efficiency can decrease our carbon emissions. Besides reducing
emissions, what’s another reason that people like energy efficiency?

25. What are three of the new “tools” being suggested by Stewart Brand to fight climate change?
 26. How many new nuclear power plants have been built in the USA since the 1970’s? How many does
China plan to build over the next 30 years?

27. How much is energy demand predicted to increase by over the next century?

28. 1 nuclear power plant = _____________ wind turbines = ____________ square miles of solar panels.

29. What does Science Advisor John Holdgren mean when he uses the term “silver shotgun”?

30. What happened to the solar panels on the white house after they were taken down?

Conclusion:
A. Did you feel that the video answered the question they were trying to: “Are we finally on the brink of a
clean energy surge, or is it a little too late?” How?

B. What bias was there?

C. What are 2 questions you have from this video?

D. What is one surprising/neat thing you learned from this?