ENVIRON 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Externality, Surface Mining, Directional Drilling
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
The Environment and Energy Sources
4.02.15 Lecture Notes
Opening Class Discussion:
Why is coal cheap?
A lot of it
Easy to extract
Externalities (pollution, effects on ecosystem) are not included in the price
Like most fossil fuels, coal is subsidized
Fracking
Earthquakes
More environmentally friendly, but not regulated enough
Requires a lot of water
What kind of water is used for fracking?
o Engineers are working so that less clean water is necessary for fracking
Pollution of groundwater
Debate hinges on the extent of regulation and the weighing of costs and benefits
Alternatives to fracking??
Oil will not run out, question is when will it be economically not worth it to extract it (too deep)
I. Why care?
Energy important in human successes
1800: Italy – electricity from wet-cell battery
Historically
Most energy sources were from wood
Peak on petroleum, natural gas, and coal
Nuclear peaked at some point, but now has plateaued or even gone down
II. History of human energy use
Energy is useful and limited
(umans appropriate ~% of the Earth’s total NPP
o Human appropriated NPP (HANPP) varies regionally
o HANPP often >>> NPP – must be subsidized with NPP from other regions
o Using fossil fuels to import energy from another point in time (because HANPP exceeds
current NPP)
Additional sources of energy required
Costs of energy
$120 billion per year, external costs of fossil fuels (National Research Council)
~20 lbs of coal/day (gone down recently because of fracking)
Coal mining leads to 6000 deaths/year in China
Pollution from coal about ~1 million deaths/year in China
Flooding of ash sludge in Tennessee
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27sludge.html?_r=0
III. Sources of Energy (historical and current)
Fossil fuels: formation
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Externalities (pollution, effects on ecosystem) are not included in the price. Like most fossil fuels, coal is subsidized. More environmentally friendly, but not regulated enough. What kind of water is used for fracking: engineers are working so that less clean water is necessary for fracking. Debate hinges on the extent of regulation and the weighing of costs and benefits. 1800: italy electricity from wet-cell battery. Peak on petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Nuclear peaked at some point, but now has plateaued or even gone down. billion per year, external costs of fossil fuels (national research council) ~20 lbs of coal/day (gone down recently because of fracking) Coal mining leads to 6000 deaths/year in china. Pollution from coal about ~1 million deaths/year in china. Flooding of ash sludge in tennessee http://www. nytimes. com/2008/12/27/us/27sludge. html?_r=0. Woody terrestrial vegetation dies and falls onto swamp or marine organisms fall/sink to ocean.
