UNIT 1: THE ENVIRONMENT

Lesson 3: Energy Sources

I. Vocabulary:
1. Revision
- alternative: ___________________
- impact: ___________________
- fossil fuels: ___________________
- industry: ___________________
- increase: ___________________
- produce: ___________________
- chemical: ___________________
- agriculture: ___________________
- soil: ___________________
2. New words
- source (N): where something can be found (nguồn)
- organic (adj): related to living things (hữu cơ)
- consume = use (v): tiêu thụ (N: consumption)
- purpose (n): reason, use (mục đích, chức năng)
- extract (V): khai thác
- demand (n/v): the need for (nhu cầu)
- available (adj): sẵn có
- production (N) => productivity (N): năng suất (productive – adj)
- renewable energy (n): energy sources that can’t run out e.g. solar, wind… (n.lượng tái tạo)
- substance ≈ chemical (chất, hợp chất…)
- hydroelectricity: _________________
II. Pre-reading
1. What forms of energy do people around you often use?
_____________________________________________________________________________
2. Do you know how electricity is produced?
_____________________________________________________________________________
3. What is fossil fuel? What is the problem with it?
_____________________________________________________________________________
 ENERGY SOURCES
A. ____________________________________________________________________________
Just as the human body needs energy to survive and function, the entire human society needs energy to
prosper. While the evolution from our primate ancestors is a long journey that lasted millions of years, many
people argue that we first became human the moment we discovered how to make fire. That was also the
moment we started using fuels, as woods, leaves and other organic materials were used to make and maintain
fire. And just like how our food consumption became more diverse when cooking and agriculture were
invented, our energy sources also expanded.

B. ____________________________________________________________________________
As mentioned before, the journey of our kind started when fire making was invented. It should be noted
that fire is not purely a human invention, as dry seasons and lightnings have created forest fire ever since there
were plants on Earth. However, man is the only species who learnt to control and make fire, which dated back
as far as 1.5 million years ago. Fire was used for many different purposes. It protected prehistoric people from
predators, since wild animals have the instinctive fear of wildfire. Fire was also used for cooking, which makes
food safer to eat and easier to digest, as well as for providing heat and light. And for the most part of that 1.5
million years, the main source of fuel was organic matters: wood, charcoal (which was made from wood), leaf,
peat, and animal dungs. Then oil extracted from plants (such as olive oil) and animal fats was first made over
8000 years ago.

C. ____________________________________________________________________________
Other energy sources extracted from the ground were known to men much later than that. Around 4000
BCE, bitumen, a form of petroleum, was used in Mesopotamia. Historical documents of the ancient Greeks,
Romans and Chinese also record the use of petroleum. Then came coal, used by the ancient Chinese since 1000
BC. Since only a small amount of these fossil fuels could be found near the Earth’s surface, they were
extracted in very small quantities. In addition, the demand for these fuels was not high, since people mostly
needed fuels for cooking, heating and lighting. As a result, organic matters such as wood were still the main
energy source due to its cheap cost and availability.

D. ____________________________________________________________________________
It was only until the Industrial Revolution from 1760 to 1840 that there was tremendous demand for
power. Advances in technology, especially James Watt’s invention of the steam engine, led to the transition
from hand production methods to machines, which means productivity could increase exponentially as long as
the demand for power could be met. This was the motivation for the energy industry to develop, with large-
scale coal mining and oil extracting and refining. Additionally, there was the commercial whaling industry,
which hunted whales to extract their fat as fuels. During this time, maritime global trade (using ships to
transport goods across the oceans) increased rapidly, causing more lighthouses to be built and more whale oil
to be needed as lighting fuels.

E. ____________________________________________________________________________
Although whales had already been hunted before the Industrial Revolution, the value of whale oil became
much greater during this period for a rather unexpected purpose. Whale oil was used as lubricants for machines
to reduce friction and allow machine parts to run more smoothly. Similarly, oil and coal have several uses
outside being fuels. Coal is used in the production of steel and many chemicals, while substances produced
from oil are used to make medicines, cosmetics, fertilizers and plastics. Up to these days, such uses of coals
and oils are still used for industrial production around the world. In contrast, the whaling industry has basically
ended because overhunting pushed the whale population to the verge of extinction, and because more
convenient alternatives to whale oil are available.

F. ____________________________________________________________________________
The next breakthrough came with the invention of electricity. Since the modern society relies heavily on
machines and electronic devices, electricity has become immensely important. It can power almost anything,
from small household devices to large industrial machines, and even traffic vehicles. Electronic screens,
calculations and computer algorithms are impossible to run by simply burning oils and coals; they all depend
on electrical currents. However, electricity itself is not an energy source that can be extracted directly from
nature. It is a form of energy produced from other sources, such as burning fossil fuels to run generators (this
account for over 60% of all electricity production). The rest is from renewable energy sources (wind, solar
energy, hydroelectricity etc.) at 26% and nuclear energy at 10 %. As a result, fossil fuels still remain the most
important energy source of our society now, despite concerns about its environmental impacts.

I. Write quick summary of each paragraph.

II. Do NOT read the passage again. Where can the information below found?
1. Why fire was so important. 7. What human evolved from.
2. What allowed industrial development. 8. How electricity is produced.
3. What is needed to produce plastics. 9. One organic source that became popular.
4. The new demand for fuels 10. Why some fuels were rare.
5. Little need for new fuels. 11. The only species that can do something.
6. What fossil fuels can’t do. 12. Why a fuel is no longer used.
III. Match the heading
i. Rise of the energy industry A. _______
ii. Not an energy source itself. B. _______
iii. Similarities between food and fuels C. _______
iv. More than just fuels. D. _______
v. Fire and early fuels. E. _______
vi. The discovery of other energy sources. F. _______
IV. True, False or Not given
1. Before human, fire couldn’t be found anywhere in nature. _______
2. Fire kept keep us safe from wild animals. _______
3. Olive oil was invented to use as cooking oil rather than fuels. _______
4. Mankind didn’t know about oil or coal for millions of years. _______
5. Although oil was easy to extract, people still used wood because it was cheap _______
6. People did not need fossil coal until the invention of new industrial machines _______
7. During the Industrial Revolution, most ships used steam engine to travel longer distances. _______
8. People only hunted whales to fuel the Industrial Revolution. _______
V. Summary
Some energy sources are not just used as 1. _______; they also have many valuable properties for
industries. Specifically, coal and oil are important ingredients in the production of many substances and
materials. In the past, oil whale was needed as 2. ________, which allowed machines to run more
efficiently. However, it is no longer used now due to the decreasing population of whales, and also
because there are better 3. _______. In the modern society, electricity has emerged as the ultimate form of
power that enables the age of electronic devices. However, most of the electricity we use is produced by
combusting fossil fuels rather than the 4._______ resources (such as solar power). As a result, the world’s
dependence on fossil fuels still continue regardless of their 5. __________ on our increasingly polluted
environment.