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Energy Resources
Billion
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2. What is energy? Energy is the ability to do work.
Energy can be found in a number of different forms. It can be chemical energy, electrical energy, heat (thermal) energy, light (radiant) energy, mechanical energy, and nuclear energy.

3. What is energy? Stored energy is called potential energy.
Moving energy is called kinetic energy.

4. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
Thermal power plants have big boilers that burn a fuel to make heat. A boiler is like a teapot on a stove. When the water boils, the steam comes through a tiny hole on the top of the spout. The moving steam makes a whistle that tells you the water has boiled.
In a power plant, the water is brought to a boil inside the boiler, and the steam is then piped to the turbine through very thick pipes.

5. A Visit to a Power Plant United Streaming Video—PowerPlant
United Streaming Video—Hydroelectricity, turbine

6. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants

7. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
In most boilers, wood, coal, oil, or natural gas is burned in a firebox to make heat. Running through the fire box and above that hot fire are a series of pipes with water running through them. The heat energy is conducted into the metal pipes, heating the water in the pipes until it boils into steam. Water boils into steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius.

8. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
The picture is of a small power plant located at Michigan State University. The black area to the left of the power plant is coal, the energy source that is burned to heat the water in the boilers of this plant.

9. Power Plant at MSU
Coal

10. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
In the turbine/generator picture, you’ll see the turbine and generator at MSU’s power plant. The big pipe on the left side is the steam inlet. On the right side of the turbine is where the steam comes out. The steam is fed under high pressure to the turbine. The turbine spins and its shaft is connected to a turbogenerator that changes mechanical spinning energy into electricity.

11. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
How the Generator Works
The turbine is attached by a shaft to the turbo generator. The generator has a giant magnet inside a stationary ring wrapped with a long wire.
You can see the inside of the generator coil with all its wires in the picture.

12. Video Clip
United Streaming Generator

13. Inside a Generator

14. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
The shaft that comes out of the turbine is connected to the generator. When the turbine turns, the shaft and rotor is turned. As the magnet inside the generator turns, an electric current is produced in the wire. The electric generator is converting mechanical, moving energy into electrical energy.

15. Turbines, Generators, and Power Plants
The electricity produced by the generator then flows through huge transmission wires that link the power plants to our homes, schools, and businesses.
All power plants have turbines and generators. Some turbines are turned by wind, some by water, some by steam.

16. Transmission Lines and Substations
High voltage transmission lines carry electricity long distances to a substation.

17. Transformer Pole
In your neighborhood, another small transformer mounted on pole (see picture) or in a utility box converts the power to even lower levels to be used in your house. The voltage is eventually reduced to 220 volts for larger appliances, like stoves and clothes dryers, and 110 volts for lights, TVs and other smaller appliances.

18. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
There are three major forms of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
All three were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the dinosaurs—hence the name fossil fuels.

19. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
Coal is a hard, black colored rock-like substance.
Oil is another fossil fuel. It was also formed more than 300 million years ago.
Oil and natural gas are found underground between folds of rock and in areas of rock that are porous and contain the oils within the rock itself. The folds of rock were formed as the earth shifts and moves. It’s similar to how a small, throw carpet will bunch up in places on the floor.

20. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
To find oil and natural gas, companies drill through the earth to the deposits deep below the surface. The oil and natural gas are then pumped from below the ground by oil rigs. They then usually travel through pipelines or by ship.

21. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
Oil is made into many different products—fertilizers for farms, the clothes you wear, the toothbrush you use, the plastic bottle that holds your milk, the plastic pen that you write with. They all came from oil. There are thousands of other products that come from oil. Can you think of some other things made from oil?
The products include gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation or jet fuel, home heating oil, oil for ships, and oil to burn in power plants to make electricity.

22. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
Natural gas is lighter than air. Natural gas is mostly made up of a gas called methane. Methane is a simple chemical compound that is made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms. It’s chemical formula is CH4—one atom of carbon along with four atoms hydrogen. This gas is highly flammable.
Natural gas is usually found near oil underground. It is pumped from below ground and travels in pipelines to storage areas.

23. Fossil Fuels—Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas
Natural gas usually has no odor and you can’t see it. Before it is sent to the pipelines and storage tanks, it is mixed with a chemical that gives a strong odor. The odor smells almost like rotten eggs. The odor makes it easy to smell if there is a leak.

24. Energy Safety Note!
Energy Safety Note: If you smell that rotten egg smell in your house, tell your folks and get out of the house quickly. Don’t turn on any lights or other electrical devices. A spark from a light switch can ignite the gas very easily. Go to a neighbor’s house and call for emergency help.

25. Biomass Energy
Biomass is matter usually thought of as garbage. Some of it is just stuff lying around—dead trees, tree branches, yard clippings, left-over crops, wood chips (like in the picture to the right), and bark and sawdust from lumber mills. It can even include used tires and livestock manure.

26. Biomass Energy
How biomass works is very simple. The waste wood, tree branches, and other scraps are gathered together in big trucks. The trucks bring the waste from factories and from farms to a biomass power plant. Here the biomass is dumped into huge hoppers. This is then fed into a furnace where it is burned. The heat is used to boil water in the boiler, and the energy in the steam is used to turn turbines and generators.

27. Biomass

28. Biomass
So, the use of biomass is environmentally friendly because the biomass is reduced, recycled, and then reused. It is also a renewable resource because plants to make biomass can be grown over and over.

29. Geothermal Energy
Geothermal Energy has been around for as long as the Earth has existed. “Geo” means Earth, and “thermal” means heat. So, geothermal means earth-heat.
Today, people use the geothermally heated hot water in swimming pools and in health spas. Or, the hot water from below the ground can warm buildings for growing plants, like in the green house.

30. Geothermal Energy

31. Geothermal Energy
Hot water or steam from below ground can also be used to make electricity in a geothermal power plant.
A geothermal power plant is like in a regular power plant except that no fuel is burned to heat water into steam. The steam or hot water in a geothermal power plant is heated by the earth. It goes into a special turbine. The turbine blades spin and the shaft from the turbine is connected to a generator to make electricity. The steam then gets cooled off in a cooling tower.

32. Geothermal Energy
Geothermal Energy Video Clip from Unitedstreaming.com

33. Geothermal Energy
Here’s a cut-away showing the inside of the power plant. The hot water flows into the turbine and out of the turbine. The turbine turns the generator, and the electricity goes out to the transformer and then to the huge transmission wires that link the power plants to our homes, school, and businesses.

34. Hydroelectric Power
Today, moving water can also be used to make electricity.
Hydro means water. Hydro-electric means making electricity from water power.
Hydroelectric power uses the kinetic energy of moving water to make electricity. Dams can be built to stop the flow of a river. Water behind a dam often forms a reservoir.

35. Hydroelectric Power
Dams are also built across larger rivers but no reservoir is made. The river is simply sent through a hydroelectric power plant or powerhouse.
Hydro is one of the largest producers of electricity in the United States. Water power supplies about 10 percent of the entire electricity the we use. In states with high mountains and lots of rivers, even more electricity is made by hydro power.

36. Hydroelectric Power Plant
Hydroelectric Power Plant Video Clip from unitedstreaming.com

37. Nuclear Energy
A nuclear power plant (like Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant shown on the right) uses uranium as a “fuel.” Uranium is an element that is dug out of the ground many places around the world. It is processed into tiny pellets that are loaded into very long rods that are put into the power plant’s reactor.
The word fission means to split apart. Inside the reactor of an atomic power plant, uranium atoms are split apart in a controlled chain reaction.

38. Nuclear Energy
In a chain reaction, particles released by the splitting of the atom go off and strike other uranium atoms splitting those. Those particles given off split still other atoms in a chain reaction. In nuclear power plants, control rods are used to keep the splitting regulated so it doesn’t go too fast.

39. Nuclear Energy
The reaction also creates radioactive material. This material could hurt people if released, so it is kept in a solid form. The very strong concrete dome in the picture is designed to keep this material inside if an accident happens.
This chain reaction gives off heat energy. This heat energy is used to boil water in the core of the reactor. So, instead of burning a fuel, nuclear power plants use the chain reaction of atoms splitting to change the energy of atoms into heat energy.

40. Nuclear Energy

41. Nuclear Energy
This water from around the nuclear core is sent to another section of the power plant. Here, in the heat exchanger, it heats another set of pipes filled with water to make steam. The steam in this second set of pipes turns a turbine to generate electricity.

42. Nuclear Power Plant

43. Nuclear Energy
Below is a cross section of the inside of a typical nuclear power plant.

44. Solar Energy Solar energy can also be used to make electricity.
Some solar power plants, like the one in the picture to the right in California’s Mojave Desert, use a highly curved mirror called a parabolic trough to focus the sunlight on a pipe running down a central point above the curve of the mirror. The mirror focuses the sunlight to strike the pipe, and it gets so hot that it can boil water into steam. The steam can then be used to turn a turbine to make electricity.

45. Solar Energy
We can also change the sunlight directly to electricity using solar cells. Solar cells are also called photovoltaic cells—or PV cells for short—and can be found on many small appliances, like calculators, and even on spacecraft.

46. Solar Panels/Cells Video Clip

47. Solar Energy
When sunlight strikes the solar cell, electrons (red circles) are knocked loose. They move toward the treated front surface (dark blue color). An electron imbalance is created between the front and back. When the two surfaces are joined by a connector, like a wire, a current of electricity occurs between the negative and positive sides.

48. Solar Cell

49. Wind Energy
Wind can be used to do work. The kinetic energy of the wind can be changed into other forms of energy, either mechanical energy or electrical energy.
Blowing wind spins the blades on a wind turbine—just like a large toy pinwheel. This device is called a wind turbine and not a windmill. A windmill grinds or mills grain, or is used to pump water.

50. Wind Energy
The blades of the turbine are attached to a hub that is mounted on a turning shaft. The shaft goes through a gear transmission box where the turning speed is increased. The transmission is attached to a high speed shaft which turns a generator that makes electricity.

51. Wind Energy Video Clip

52. Wind Energy

53. Wind Energy

54. Power Plant Websites
Now, I will show you some diagrams of different types of power plants. When I move the mouse over the parts, you will see the name of the part.

55. Instructions Turn in your notes at the end of the period.
If you listened and fill the notes out properly, you will receive a 100 for the Energy Resources Notes grade.
Study Energy Resources Cards= Homework!