Chapter 1: Energy - What Is It?

Energy causes things to happen around us.

Look out the window.
During the day, the sun gives out light and heat energy. At night, street
lamps use electrical energy to light our way.
When a car drives by, it is being powered by gasoline, a type of stored
energy.
The food we eat contains energy. We use that energy to work and play.
We learned the definition of energy in the introduction:
"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.
Stored and Moving Energy
Energy makes everything happen and can be divided into two types:

Stored energy is called potential energy.

Moving energy is called kinetic energy.
With a pencil, try this example to know the two types of energy.
Put the pencil at the edge of the desk and push it off to the floor. The
moving pencil uses kinetic energy.
Now, pick up the pencil and put it back on the desk. You used your own
energy to lift and move the pencil. Moving it higher than the floor adds
energy to it. As it rests on the desk, the pencil has potential energy. The
higher it is, the further it could fall. That means the pencil has more
potential energy.
How Do We Measure Energy?
Energy is measured in many ways.
One of the basic measuring blocks is called a Btu. This stands for British
thermal unit and was invented by, of course, the English.
Btu is the amount of heat energy it takes to raise the temperature of one
pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit, at sea level.
One Btu equals about one blue-tip kitchen match.
One thousand Btus roughly equals: One average candy bar or 4/5 of a
peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
It takes about 2,000 Btus to make a pot of coffee.

Energy also can be measured in joules. Joules sounds exactly like the word
jewels, as in diamonds and emeralds. A thousand joules is equal to a
British thermal unit.
1,000 joules = 1 Btu
So, it would take 2 million joules to make a pot of coffee.
The term "joule" is named after an English scientist James Prescott
Joule who lived from 1818 to 1889. He discovered that heat is a type of
energy.
One joule is the amount of energy needed to lift
something weighing one pound to a height of nine
inches. So, if you lifted a five-pound sack of sugar
from the floor to the top of a counter (27 inches), you
would use about 15 joules of energy.
Around the world, scientists measure energy in joules
rather than Btus. It's much like people around the
world using the metric system of meters and
kilograms, instead of the English system of feet and
pounds.

Like in the metric system, you can have kilojoules "kilo" means 1,000.
1,000 joules = 1 kilojoule = 1 Btu
A piece of buttered toast contains about 315 kilojoules (315,000 joules) of
energy. With that energy you could:

Jog for 6 minutes

Bicycle for 10 minutes
Walk briskly for 15 minutes
Sleep for 1-1/2 hours
Run a car for 7 seconds at 80 kilometers per hour (about 50 miles per
hour)
Light a 60-watt light bulb for 1-1/2 hours
Or lift that sack of sugar from the floor to the counter 21,000 times!
Changing Energy
Energy can be transformed into another sort of energy. But it cannot be
created AND it cannot be destroyed. Energy has always existed in one
form or another.
Here are some changes in energy from one form to another.
Stored energy in a flashlight's batteries becomes light energy when the
flashlight is turned on.

Food is stored energy. It is stored as a chemical with potential energy.

When your body uses that stored energy to do work, it becomes kinetic
energy.
If you overeat, the energy in food is not "burned" but is stored as potential
energy in fat cells.
When you talk on the phone, your voice is transformed into electrical
energy, which passes over wires (or is transmitted through the air). The
phone on the other end changes the electrical energy into sound energy
through the speaker.
A car uses stored chemical energy in gasoline to move. The engine
changes the chemical energy into heat and kinetic energy to power the
car.
A toaster changes electrical energy into heat and light energy. (If you look
into the toaster, you'll see the glowing wires.)
A television changes electrical energy into light and sound energy.
Food Energy
Energy changes form at each step in the food chain. Take an ear of corn as
an example.
Sunlight is taken in by the leaves on the corn stalk and transformed
through photosynthesis. The plant takes in sunlight and combines it with
carbon dioxide from the air and water and minerals from the ground.
The plant grows tall and creates the ears of corn - its seeds. The energy of
the sunlight is stored in the leaves and inside the corn kernels. The corn
kernels are full of energy stored as sugars and starch. The corn is
harvested and is fed to chickens and other animals. The chickens use the
stored energy in the corn on the cob to grow and to move. Some energy is
stored in the animal in its muscle tissue (protein) and in the fat.
The chicken reaches maturity, a farmer slaughters it and prepares it to be
sold. It's transported to the grocery store. Your parents buy the chicken at
the supermarket, bring it home and cook it (using energy).
You then eat the chicken's meat and fat and convert that stored energy
into energy in your own body. Maybe you ate the chicken at a picnic. Then
you went and played baseball. You're using the energy from that chicken
to swing the bat, run the bases and throw the ball.
As your body uses the energy from the chicken, you breathe in oxygen and
exhale carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide is then used by other plants to
grow.
So, it's a big circle!
Heat Energy

Heat is a form of energy. We use it for a lot of things, like warming our
homes and cooking our food.
Heat energy moves in three ways:
1. Conduction
2. Convection
3. Radiation
Conduction occurs when energy is passed directly from one item to
another. If you stirred a pan of soup on the stove with a metal spoon, the
spoon will heat up. The heat is being conducted from the hot area of the
soup to the colder area of spoon.
Metals are excellent conductors of heat energy. Wood or plastics are not.
These "bad" conductors are called insulators. That's why a pan is usually
made of metal while the handle is
made of a strong plastic.
Convection is the movement of gases or liquids from a cooler spot to a
warmer spot. If a soup pan is made of glass, we could see the movement
of convection currents in the pan. The warmer soup moves up from the
heated area at the bottom of the pan to the top where it is cooler. The
cooler soup then moves to take the warmer soup's place. The movement
is in a circular pattern within the pan (see picture above).
The wind we feel outside is often the result of convection currents. You can
understand this by the winds you feel near an ocean. Warm air is lighter
than cold air and so it rises. During the daytime, cool air over water moves
to replace the air rising up as the land warms the air over it. During the
nighttime, the directions change the surface of the water is
sometimes warmer and the land is
cooler.

Radiation is the final form of

movement of heat energy. The sun's
light and heat cannot reach us by
conduction or convection because
space is almost completely empty.
There is nothing to transfer the
energy from the sun to the earth.
The sun's rays travel in straight lines
called heat rays.
When it moves
that way, it is called radiation.
When sunlight hits the earth, its radiation is absorbed or reflected. Darker
surfaces absorb more of the radiation and lighter surfaces reflect the

radiation. So you would be cooler if you wear light or white clothes in the
summer.

Chapter 2: What Is Electricity?

Electricity figures everywhere in our lives. Electricity lights up our homes,
cooks our food, powers our computers, television sets, and other
electronic devices. Electricity from batteries keeps our cars running and
makes our flashlights shine in the dark.
Here's something you can do to see the importance of electricity. Take a
walk through your school, house or apartment and write down all the
different appliances, devices and machines that use electricity. You'll be
amazed at how many things we use each and every day that depend on
electricity.
But what is electricity? Where does it come from? How does it work?
Before we understand all that, we need to know a little bit about atoms
and their structure.
All matter is made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of smaller
particles. The three main particles making up an atom are the proton, the
neutron and the electron.
Electrons spin around the center, or nucleus, of atoms, in the same way
the moon spins around the earth. The nucleus is made up of neutrons and
protons.
Electrons contain a negative charge, protons a positive charge. Neutrons
are neutral they have neither a positive nor a negative charge.
There are many different kinds of atoms, one for each type of element. An
atom is a single part that makes up an element. There are 118 different
known elements that make up every thing! Some elements like oxygen we
breathe are essential to life.
Each atom has a specific number of electrons, protons and neutrons. But
no matter how many particles an atom has, the number of electrons
usually needs to be the same as the number of protons. If the numbers are
the same, the atom is called balanced, and it is very stable.
So, if an atom had six protons, it should also have six electrons. The
element with six protons and six electrons is called carbon. Carbon is
found in abundance in the sun, stars, comets, atmospheres of most
planets, and the food we eat. Coal is made of carbon; so are diamonds.
Some kinds of atoms have loosely attached electrons. An atom that loses
electrons has more protons than electrons and is positively charged. An
atom that gains electrons has more negative particles and is negatively
charge. A "charged" atom is called an "ion."

Electrons can be made to move from one atom to another. When those
electrons move between the atoms, a current of electricity is created. The
electrons move from one atom to another in a "flow." One electron is
attached and another electron is lost.
This chain is similar to the fire fighter's bucket brigades in olden times. But
instead of passing one bucket from the start of the line of people to the
other end, each person would have a bucket of water to pour from one
bucket to another. The result was a lot of spilled water and not enough
water to douse the fire. It is a situation that's very similar to electricity
passing along a wire and a circuit. The charge is passed from atom to
atom when electricity is "passed."
Scientists and engineers have learned many ways to move electrons off of
atoms. That means that when you add up the electrons and protons, you
would wind up with one more proton instead of being balanced.
Since all atoms want to be balanced, the atom that has been "unbalanced"
will look for a free electron to fill the place of the missing one. We say that
this unbalanced atom has a "positive charge" (+) because it has too many
protons.
Since it got kicked off, the free electron moves around waiting for an
unbalanced atom to give it a home. The free electron charge is negative,
and has no proton to balance it out, so we say that it has a "negative
charge" (-).
So what do positive and negative charges have to do with electricity?
Scientists and engineers have found several ways to create large numbers
of positive atoms and free negative electrons. Since positive atoms want
negative electrons so they can be balanced, they have a strong attraction
for the electrons. The electrons also want to be part of a balanced atom,
so they have a strong attraction to the positive atoms. So, the positive
attracts the negative to balance out.
The more positive atoms or negative electrons you have, the stronger the
attraction for the other. Since we have both positive and negative charged
groups attracted to each other, we call the total attraction "charge."
Energy also can be measured in joules. Joules sounds exactly like the word
jewels, as in diamonds and emeralds. A thousand joules is equal to a
British thermal unit.
When electrons move among the atoms of matter, a current of electricity
is created. This is what happens in a piece of wire. The electrons are
passed from atom to atom, creating an electrical current from one end to
other, just like in the picture.
Electricity is conducted through some things better than others do. Its
resistance measures how well something conducts electricity. Some things
hold their electrons very tightly. Electrons do not move through them very

well. These things are called insulators. Rubber, plastic, cloth, glass and
dry air are good insulators and have very high resistance.
Other materials have some loosely held electrons, which move through
them very easily. These are called conductors. Most metals like copper,
aluminum or steel are good conductors.
Where Does the Word 'Electricity' Come From?
Electrons, electricity, electronic and other words that begin with "electr..."
all originate from the Greek word "elektor," meaning "beaming sun." In
Greek, "elektron" is the word for amber.
Amber is a very pretty goldish brown "stone" that sparkles orange and
yellow in sunlight. Amber is actually fossilized tree sap! It's the stuff used
in the movie "Jurassic Park." Millions of years ago insects got stuck in the
tree sap. Small insects which had bitten the dinosaurs, had blood with DNA
from the dinosaurs in the insect's bodies, which were now fossilized in the
amber.
Ancient Greeks discovered that amber behaved oddly - like attracting
feathers - when rubbed by fur or other objects. They didn't know what it
was that caused this phenomenon. But the Greeks had discovered one of
the first examples of static electricity (see Chapter 3).
The Latin word, electricus, means to "produce from amber by friction."
So, we get our English word electricity from Greek and Latin words that
were about amber.

Chapter 3: Resistance and Static Electricity

As we have learned, some kinds of atoms contain loosely attached
electrons. Electrons can be made to move easily from one atom to
another. When those electrons move among the atoms of matter, a
current of electricity is created.
Take a piece of wire. The electrons are passed from atom to atom,
creating an electrical current from one end to the other. Electrons are very,
very small. A single copper penny contains more than
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1x1022) electrons.
Electricity "flows" or moves through some things better than others do.
The measurement of how well something conducts electricity is called its
resistance.
Resistance in wire depends on how thick and how long it is, and what it's
made of. The thickness of wire is called its gauge. The smaller the gauge,
the bigger the wire. Some of the largest thicknesses of regular wire is
gauge 1.
Different types of metal are used in making wire. You can have copper
wire, aluminum wire, even steel wire. Each of these metals has a different
resistance; how well the metal conducts electricity. The lower the
resistance of a wire, the better it conducts electricity.
Copper is used in many wires because it has a lower resistance than many
other metals. The wires in your walls, inside your lamps and elsewhere are
usually copper.
A piece of metal can be made to act like a heater. When an electrical
current occurs, the resistance causes friction and the friction causes heat.
The higher the resistance, the hotter it can get. So, a coiled wire high in
resistance, like the wire in a hair dryer, can be very hot.
Some things conduct electricity very poorly. These are called insulators.
Rubber is a good insulator, and that's why rubber is used to cover wires in
an electric cord. Glass is another good insulator. If you look at the end of a
power line, you'll see that it is attached to some bumpy looking things.
These are glass insulators. They keep the metal of the wires from touching
the metal of the towers.
Static Electricity
Another type of electrical energy is static electricity. Unlike current
electricity that moves, static electricity stays in one place.

Try this experiment...

Rub a balloon filled with air on a wool sweater or on your hair. Then hold it
up to a wall. The balloon will stay there by itself.
Tie strings to the ends of two balloons. Now rub the two balloons together,
hold them by strings at the end and put them next to each other. They'll
move apart.
Rubbing the balloons gives them static electricity. When you rub the
balloon it picks up extra electrons from the sweater or your hair and
becomes slightly negatively charged.
The negative charges in the single balloon are attracted to the positive
charges in the wall.
The two balloons hanging by strings both have negative charges. Negative
charges always repel negative charges and positive always repels positive
charges. So, the two balloons' negative charges "push" each other apart.
Static electricity can also give you a shock. If you walk across a carpet,
shuffling your feet and touching something made of metal, a spark can
jump between you and the metal object. Shuffling your feet picks up
additional electrons spread over your body. When you touch a metal
doorknob or something with a positive charge the electricity jumps across
the small gap from your fingers just before you touch the metal knob. If
you walk across a carpet and touch a computer case, you can damage the
computer.
One other type of static electricity is very spectacular. It's the lightning in
a thunder and lightning storm. Clouds become negatively charged as ice
crystals inside the clouds rub up against each other. Meanwhile, on the
ground, the positive charge increases. The clouds get so highly charged
that the electrons jump from the ground to the cloud, or from one cloud to
another cloud. This causes a huge spark of static electricity in the sky that
we call lightning.
You can find out more about lightning at Web Weather for Kids
-www.ucar.edu/40th/webweather/
But What Is Static Electricity?
You'll remember from Chapter 2 that the word "electricity" came from the
Greek words "elektor," for "beaming sun" and "elektron," both words
describing amber. Amber is fossilized tree sap millions of years old and has
hardened as hard as a stone.
Around 600 BCE (Before the Common Era) Greeks noticed a strange effect:
When rubbing "elektron" against a piece of fur, the amber would start
attracting particles of dust, feathers and straw. No one paid much
attention to this "strange effect" until about 1600 when Dr. William Gilbert
investigated the reactions of magnets and amber and discovered other
objects can be made "electric."

Gilbert said that amber acquired what he called "resinous electricity" when
rubbed with fur. Glass, however, when rubbed with silk, acquired what he
termed "vitreous electricity."
He thought that electricity repeled the same kind and attracts the
opposite kind of electricity. Gilbert and other scientists of that time
thought that the friction actually created the electricity (their word for the
electrical charge).
In 1747, Benjamin Franklin in America and William Watson in England both
reached the same conclusion. They said all materials possess a single kind
of electrical "fluid." They didn't really know anything about atoms and
electrons, so they called how it behaved a "fluid."
They thought that this fluid can penetrate matter freely and couldn't be
created or destroyed. The two men thought that the action of rubbing (like
rubbing amber with fur) moves this unseen fluid from one thing to
another, electrifying both.
Franklin defined the fluid as positive and the lack of fluid as negative.
Therefore, according to Franklin, the direction of flow was from positive to
negative. Today, we know that the opposite is true. Electricity flows from
negative to positive. Others took the idea even further saying this that two
fluids are involved. They said items with the same fluid attract each other.
And opposite types of fluid in objects will make them repel each other.
All of this was only partially right. This is how scientific theories develop.
Someone thinks of why something occurs and then proposes an
explanation. It can take centuries sometime to find the real truth. Instead
of electricity being a fluid, it is the movement of the charged particles
between the objects... the two objects are really exchanging electrons.

Chapter 4: Circuits
Electrons with a negative charge, can't "jump" through the air to a
positively charged atom. They have to wait until there is a link or bridge
between the negative area and the positive area. We usually call this
bridge a "circuit."
When a bridge is created, the electrons begin moving quickly. Depending
on the resistance of the material making up the bridge, they try to get
across as fast as they can. If you're not careful, too many electrons can go
across at one time and destroy the "bridge" or the circuit, in the process.
In Chapter 3, we learned about electrons and the attraction between
positive and negative charges. We also learned that we can create a
bridge called a "circuit" between the charges.
We can limit the number of electrons crossing over the "circuit," by letting
only a certain number through at a time. And we can make electricity do
something for us while they are on their way. For example, we can "make"
the electrons "heat" a filament in a bulb, causing it to glow and give off
light.
When we limit the number of electrons that can cross over our circuit, we
say we are giving it "resistance". We "resist" letting all the electrons
through. This works something like a tollbooth on a freeway bridge.
Copper wire is just one type of bridge we use in circuits.
Before electrons can move far, however, they can collide with one of the
atoms along the way. This slows them down or even reverses their
direction. As a result, they lose energy to the atoms. This energy appears
as heat, and the scattering is a resistance to the current.
Think of the bridge as a garden hose. The current of electricity is the water
flowing in the hose and the water pressure is the voltage of a circuit. The
diameter of the hose is the determining factor for the resistance.
Current refers to the movement of charges. In an electrical circuit
electrons move from the negative pole to the positive. If you connected
the positive pole of an electrical source to the negative pole, you create a
circuit. This charge changes into electrical energy when the poles are

connected in a circuit similar to connecting the two poles on opposite

ends of a battery.
Along the circuit you can have a light bulb and an on-off switch. The light
bulb changes the electrical energy into light and heat energy.
Circuit Experiment
As a boy, Thomas Edisonbuilt a small laboratory in his cellar. His early
experiments helped develop a very inquisitive mind. His whole life was
spent thinking about how things work and dreaming up new inventions.
The light bulb and movie projector are just
two of dozens of inventions.
You can build a very basic electrical circuit similar to what Edison may
have crafted as a boy. And you can find out what happens when a current
is "open" compared with when it's "closed."
Here's What You need:
1.
Penlight bulb
2.
Flashlight battery
3.
Two 6" pieces of insulated wire (any kind will work)
4.
Tape to keep the wire on the end of the battery
5.
A small piece of thin flat metal to make a "switch"
6.
Small block of wood
Here's What to Do
1.
To make a switch:

Take the block of wood and stick one thumb tack in.

Push the other thumbtack through the thin piece of flat metal.

Push the thumb tack into the wood so that the piece of metal can
touch the other thumb tack (see picture).
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Connect the first piece of wire to a thumbtack on the switch.

Place the light bulb in the center of this wire piece.
Tape the end of the first piece of wire to one end of the battery.
Tape your second piece of wire to the opposite end of the battery.
Attach the end of your second piece of wire to the remaining
thumbtack on the switch.

You've created an electrical circuit.

When you press the switch connecting the two thumbtacks, your circuit is
"closed" and your current flows turning your light bulb on. When your
switch is up, your circuit is "open" and your current can not flow turning
your light bulb off, just like Thomas Edison's may have done.
The number of electrons we are willing to let across the circuit at one time
is called "current". We measure current using amperes, or "Amps".
One AMP is defined as 6,250,000,000,000,000,000 (6.25 x 1018) electrons
moving across your circuit every second!

Since no one wants to remember such a big number, that big number is
called a "coulomb," after the scientist Charles A Coulomb who helped
discover what a current of electricity is.
The amount of charge between the sides of the circuit is called "voltage."
We measure Voltage in Volts. The word volt is named after another
scientist, Alexader Volta, who built the world's first battery.
You'll remember that back in Chapter 1, we defined energy as the "ability
to do work."
Well, one volt is defined as the amount of electrical charge needed to
make one Coulomb (625,000,000,000,000,000,000 electrons) do one a
specific amount of work which is labeled one joule.
Joule is also named after a scientist, James Prescott Joule. Do you
remember him from Chapter 2?
Voltage, Current and Resistance are very important to circuits. If either
voltage or current is too big you could break the circuit. But if either is too
small, the circuit will not be able to work enough to be useful to us. In the
same way, if the resistance is too big none of the electrons would be able
to get though at all, but if it were too small, they would rush though all at
once breaking the circuit on their way.
An Electrical Circuit
(From humorist Dave Barry's book Dave Barry in Cyberspace)
"Electricity is supplied by the wall socket, which is in turn connected to the
electrical company via big overhead wires with squirrels running on them.
"A question many people ask ... is, 'How come the squirrels don't get
electrocuted?' To answer that question, we need to understand exactly
what an electrical circuit is.
"When you turn on a switch, electricity flows through the wire into the
appliance, where it is converted via a process called electrolysis into tiny
microwaves. These fly around inside the oven area until they locate the
Hungry Hombre Heat 'n' Eat Hearty Burrito entree; they then signal the
location to each other by slapping their tails in a distinctive pattern. The
workers, or drones, then ... swarm around the queen; this causes the rapid
warming that makes the entree edible and leads via amino acids, to
digestion.
"This is followed by grunting and flushing, with the outflow traveling via
underground pipes to the sewage treatment plant, which in turn releases
purified water into the river, where it is used to form waterfalls, which
rotate the giant turbines that produce the electricity that flows through
wires back to your appliance, thereby completing the circuit.
"So we see that squirrels have nothing whatsoever to do with it. There is
no need for you to worry about squirrels; believe me, they are not
worrying about you."

Please Note: THIS IS A JOKE!!!

Parallel Circuits!
When we have only one circuit that electrons can go through to get to the
other side we call it a "series circuit."

If we were to set up another circuit next to the first one, we would have
two circuits between the charges. We call these "parallel circuits" because
they run parallel to each other. You can have as many parallel circuits as
you want. Parallel circuits share the same voltage, but they allow more
paths for the electricity to go over. This means that the total number of
electrons that can get across (the current) can increase, without breaking
either circuit.
Electric Motors
An electric motor uses circuits wound round and round. These
wound circuits are suspended between magnets. (We send a 'thank
you' toHow Stuff Works Website for their electric motor graphic.)

A motor works through electromagnetism. It has a coiled up wire (the

circuit) that sits between the north and south poles of a magnet. When
current flows through the coiled circuit, another magnetic field is
produced. The north pole of the fixed magnet attracts the south pole of
the coiled wire. The two north poles push away, or repulse, each other.

The motor is set up in a way that attraction and repulsion spins the center
section with the coiled wire.

Chapter 5: Stored Energy and Batteries

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be saved in various
forms. One way to store it is in the form of chemical energy in a battery.
When connected in a circuit, a battery can
produce electricity.
If you look at a battery, it will have two ends
&emdash; a positive terminal and a negative
terminal. If you connect the two terminals with
wire, a circuit is formed. Electrons will flow
through the wire and a current of electricity is
produced.
Inside the battery, a reaction between the
chemicals takes place. But reaction takes place
only if there is a flow of electrons. Batteries can
be stored for a long time and still work because
the chemical process doesn't start until the
electrons flow from the negative to the positive
terminals through a circuit.

How the Chemical Reaction Takes Place in a Battery

A very simple modern battery is the zinc-carbon battery, called the carbon
battery for short.
This battery contains acidic material within and a rod of zinc down the
center. Here's where knowing a little bit of chemistry helps.
When zinc is inserted into an acid, the acid begins to eat away at the zinc,
releasing hydrogen gas and heat energy. The acid molecules break up into
its components: usually hydrogen and other atoms. The process releases
electrons from the Zinc atoms that combine with hydrogen ions in the acid
to create the hydrogen gas.
If a rod of carbon is inserted into the acid, the acid does nothing to it.
But if you connect the carbon rod to the zinc rod with a wire, creating a
circuit, electrons will begin to flow through the wire and combine with
hydrogen on the carbon rod. This still releases a little bit of hydrogen gas
but it makes less heat. Some of that heat energy is the energy that is
flowing through the circuit.
The energy in that circuit can now light a light bulb in a flashlight or turn a
small motor. Depending on the size of the battery, it can even start an
automobile.
Eventually, the zinc rod is completely dissolved by the acid in the battery,
and the battery can no longer be used.
For a "great" on-line page about batteries, visit the Energizer Learning
Center.
Sidebar
As we read in Chapter 1, Alessandro Volta created the first battery (also
see our "Super Scientists" page).
Volta called his battery the Voltaic Pile. He stacked
alternating layers of zinc, cardboard soaked in salt
water and silver. It looked like this:
If you attach a wire to the top and bottom of the pile,
you create an electric current because of the flow of
electrons. Adding another layer will increase the
amount of electricity produced by the pile.
Different Types of Batteries
Different types of batteries use different types of
chemicals and chemical reactions. Some of the more
common types of batteries are:

Alkaline battery Used in Duracell and Energizer and other alkaline

batteries. The electrodes are zinc and manganese-oxide. The electrolyte is
an alkaline paste.

Lead-acid battery These are used in automobiles. The electrodes are

made of lead and lead-oxide with a strong acid as the electrolyte.
Lithium battery These batteries are used in cameras for the flash
bulb. They are made with lithium, lithium-iodide and lead-iodide. They can
supply surges of electricity for the flash.
Lithium-ion battery These batteries are found in laptop computers,
cell phones and other high-use portable equipment.
Nickel-cadmium or NiCad battery The electrodes are nickel-hydroxide
and cadmium. The electrolyte is potassium-hydroxide.
Zinc-carbon battery or standard carbon battery Zinc and carbon are
used in all regular or standard AA, C and D dry-cell batteries. The electrodes
are made of zinc and carbon, with a paste of acidic materials between them
serving as the electrolyte.
Food Another Method of Storing Energy
Batteries store energy in a chemical process, but there are other ways of
storing energy. Consider the "food chain" on our planet.
Plants, like grass in a meadow, convert the sun's energy through
photosynthesis into stored chemical energy. This energy is stored in the
plant cells is used by the plant to grow, repair itself and reproduce itself.
Cows and other animals eat the energy stored in the grass or grain and
convert that energy into stored energy in their bodies. When we eat meat
and other animal products, we in turn, store that energy in our own
bodies. We use the stored energy to walk, run, ride a bike or even read a
page on the Internet.

Chapter 6: Turbines, Generators and Power Plants

As we learned in Chapter 2, electricity flows through wires to light our
lamps, run TVs, computers and all other electrical appliances. But where
does the electricity come from?
In this chapter, we'll learn how electricity is generated in a power plant.
In the next few chapters, we'll learn about the various resources that are
used to make the heat to produce electricity. InChapter 7, we'll learn how
the electricity gets from the power plant to homes, school and businesses.
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.
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.
The top picture on the right 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.
In the second picture to the left, 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 the mechanical spinning
energy into electricity.
The third picture on the right is of the turbine fan before it is placed
inside the turbine housing. You can see a close-up of the turbine blades on
the fourth picture. The turbine has many hundreds of blades that are
turned at an angle like the blades of a fan. When the steam hits the blades
they spin the turbine's shaft that is attached to the bottom of the blades.
After the steam goes through the turbine, it usually goes to a cooling
tower outside the where the steam cools off. It cools off and becomes
water again. When the hot pipes come into contact with cool air, some
water vapor in the air is heated and steam is given off above the cooling
towers. That's why you see huge white clouds sometimes being given off
by the cooling towers. It's not smoke, but is water vapor or steam. This is
not the same steam that is used inside the turbine.
The cooled water then goes back into the boiler where it is heated
again and the process repeats over and over.
Most power plants in California use cleaner-burning natural gas to produce
electricity. Others use oil or coal to heat the water. Nuclear power plants
use nuclear energy to heat water to make electricity. Still others, called
geothermal power plants, use steam or hot water found naturally below
the earth's surface without burning a fuel. We'll learn about those energy
sources in the next few chapters.
How the Generator Works
The turbine is attached by a shaft to the turbogenerator. The generator
has a long, coiled wire on its shaft surrounded by a giant magnet. You can
see the inside of the generator coil with all its wires in the picture on the
right.
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 shaft inside
the generator turns, an electric current is produced in the wire. The
electric generator is converting mechanical, moving energy into electrical
energy.

The generator is based on the principle of "electromagnetic induction"

discovered in 1831 by Michael Faraday, a British scientist. Faraday
discovered that if an electric conductor, like a copper wire, is moved
through a magnetic field, electric current will flow (or "be induced") in the
conductor. So the mechanical energy of the moving wire is converted into
the electric energy of the current that flows in the wire.
The electricity produced by the generator then flows through huge
transmission wires that link the power plants to our homes, school and
businesses. If you want to learn about transmission lines, go to Chapter
7.
All power plants have turbines and generators. Some turbines are turned
by wind, some by water, some by steam.

Chapter 7: Electricity Transmission System

After electricity is produced at power plants it has to get to the customers
that use the electricity. Our cities, towns, states and the entire country are
criss-crossed with power lines that "carry"
the electricity.
As large generators spin, they produce electricity with a voltage of about
25,000 volts. A volt is a measurement of electromotive force in electricity.
This is the electric force that "pushes" electrons around a circuit. "Volt" is
named after Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist who invented the first
battery.
The electricity first goes to a transformer at the power plant that boosts
the voltage up to 400,000 volts. When electricity travels long distances it
is better to have it at higher voltages. Another way of saying this is that
electricity can be transferred more efficiently at high voltages.
The long thick cables of transmission lines are made of copper or
aluminum because they have a low resistance. You'll remember from
Chapter 3 that the higher the resistance of a wire, the warmer it gets. So,
some of the electrical energy is lost because it is changed into heat

energy. High voltage transmission lines carry electricity long distances to a

substation.
The power lines go into substations near businesses, factories and homes.
Here transformers change the very high voltage electricity back into lower
voltage electricity.
From these substations (like in the photo to the right), electricity in
different power levels is used to run factories, streetcars and mass transit,
light street lights and stop lights, and is sent to your neighborhood.
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.
Rather than over-head lines, some new distribution lines are underground.
The power lines are protected from the weather, which can cause line to
break. Have you ever seen what happens after an ice storm?
The picture on the right shows high voltage towers that crumpled from
the weight of ice during a 1998 ice storm that hit Canada and parts of the
United States. More than 1,000 high voltage towers and 30,000 wooden
utility poles were destroyed in Canada by the storm.
Close to 1.4 million people in Quebec and 230,000 in Ontario were without
electricity. In many places, power not fully restored for up to a week.
Weather people called it the most destructive storm in Canadian history.
When electricity enters your home, it must pass through a meter. A utility
company worker reads the meter so the company will know how much
electricity you used and can bill you for the cost.
After being metered, the electricity goes through a fuse box into your
home. The fuse box protects the house in case of problems. When a fuse
(or a circuit breaker) "blows" or "trips" something is wrong with an
appliance or something was short- circuited.
Energy Safety Note!
Never play around a transformer. If a ball or toy lands in
or near a transformer, go and tell your parents to call the
electric company. The electricity from a transformer could
kill you.
Never fly a kite around electrical lines. The kite string
could link across the wires, completing a circuit. The
electricity could be transferred back to you holding the
string.
Never let a balloon - especially a mylar foil balloon escape into the sky. When the helium of the balloon
escapes, the balloon can come down a long way aways.

The wire or the mylar surface could stretch across high

voltage electrical wires causing problems or even a fire.
You should never touch wires inside or outside your
house. You should only let an electrician who knows
electricity safety work on the wires.

Chapter 8: Fossil Fuels - Coal, Oil and Natural Gas

Where Fossil Fuels Come From
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. The age they were formed
is called the Carboniferous Period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era.
"Carboniferous" gets its name from carbon, the basic element in coal and
other fossil fuels.
The Carboniferous Period occurred from about 360 to 286 million years
ago. At the time, the land was covered with swamps filled with huge trees,
ferns and other large leafy plants, similar to the picture above. The water
and seas were filled with algae the green stuff that forms on a stagnant
pool of water. Algae is actually millions of very small plants.
Some deposits of coal can be found during the time of the dinosaurs.
For example, thin carbon layers can be found during the late Cretaceous
Period (65 million years ago) the time of Tyrannosaurus Rex. But the
main deposits of fossil fuels are from the Carboniferous Period. For more
about the various geologic eras, go
to www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html

As the trees and plants died, they sank to the bottom of the swamps of
oceans. They formed layers of a spongy material called peat. Over many
hundreds of years, the peat was covered by sand and clay and other
minerals, which turned into a type of rock called sedimentary.
More and more rock piled on top of more rock, and it weighed more and
more. It began to press down on the peat. The peat was squeezed and
squeezed until the water came out of it and it eventually, over millions of
years, it turned into coal, oil or petroleum, and natural gas.
Coal
Coal is a hard, black colored rock-like substance. It is made up of carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and varying amounts of sulphur. There are
three main types of coal anthracite, bituminous and lignite. Anthracite
coal is the hardest and has more carbon, which gives it a higher energy
content. Lignite is the softest and is low in carbon but high in hydrogen
and oxygen content. Bituminous is in between. Today, the precursor to
coalpeatis still found in many countries and is also used as an energy
source.
The earliest known use of coal was in China. Coal from the Fu-shun
mine in northeastern China may have been used to smelt copper as early
as 3,000 years ago. The Chinese thought coal was a stone that could burn.
Coal is found in many of the lower 48 states of U.S. and throughout the
rest of the world. Coal is mined out of the ground using various methods.
Some coal mines are dug by sinking vertical or horizontal shafts deep
under ground, and coal miners travel by elevators or trains deep under
ground to dig the coal. Other coal is mined in strip mines where huge
steam shovels strip away the top layers above the coal. The layers are
then restored after the coal is taken away.
The coal is then shipped by train and boats and even in pipelines. In
pipelines, the coal is ground up and mixed with water to make what's
called a slurry. This is then pumped many miles through pipelines. At the
other end, the coal is used to fuel power plants and other factories.
Oil or Petroleum
Oil is another fossil fuel. It was also formed more than 300 million years
ago. Some scientists say that tiny diatoms are the source of oil. Diatoms
are sea creatures the size of a pin head. They do one thing just like plants;
they can convert sunlight directly into stored energy.
In the graphic on the left, as the diatoms died they fell to the sea floor
(1). Here they were buried under sediment and other rock (2). The rock
squeezed the diatoms and the energy in their bodies could not escape.
The carbon eventually turned into oil under great pressure and heat. As
the earth changed and moved and folded, pockets where oil and natural
gas can be found were formed (3).

Oil has been used for more than 5,000-6,000 years. The ancient
Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians used crude oil and asphalt ("pitch")
collected from large seeps at Tuttul (modern-day Hit) on the Euphrates
River. A seep is a place on the ground where the oil leaks up from below
ground. The ancient Egyptians, used liquid oil as a medicine for wounds,
and oil has been used in lamps to provide light.
The Dead Sea, near the modern Country of Israel, used to be called Lake
Asphaltites. The word asphalt was derived is from that term because of
the lumps of gooey petroleum that were washed up on the lake shores
from underwater seeps.
In North America, Native Americans used blankets to skim oil off the
surface of streams and lakes. They used oil as medicine and to make
canoes water-proof. During the Revolutionary War, Native Americans
taught George Washington's troops how to treat frostbite with oil.
As our country grew, the demand for oil continued to increase as a fuel for
lamps. Petroleum oil began to replace whale oil in lamps because the price
for whale oil was very high. During this time, most petroleum oil came
from distilling coal into a liquid or by skimming it off of lakes just as the
Native Americans did.
Then on August 27, 1859, Edwin L. Drake (the man standing on the
right in the black and white picture to the right), struck liquid oil at his well
near Titusville, Pennsylvania. He found oil under ground and a way that
could pump it to the surface. The well pumped the oil into barrels made
out of wood. This method of drilling for oil is still being used today all over
the world in areas where oil can be found below the surface.
Oil and natural gas are found under ground 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.
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 (like in the picture). They then usually
travel through pipelines or by ship.
Oil is found in 18 of the 58 counties in California. Kern County, the County
where Bakersfield is found, is one of the largest oil production places in the
country. But we only get one-half of our oil from California wells. The rest
comes from Alaska, and an increasing amount comes from other countries.
In the entire U.S., more than 50 percent of all the oil we use comes from
outside the country... most of it from the Middle East.
Oil is brought to California by large tanker ships. The petroleum or
crude oil must be changed or refined into other products before it can be
used.
Refineries

Oil is stored in large tanks until it is sent to various places to be used. At

oil refineries, crude oil is split into various types of products by heating the
thick black oil.
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. Almost all plastic comes
originally 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.
Here's what a barrel of crude oil can make.
In California, 74 percent of our oil is used for transportation cars, planes,
trucks, buses and motorcycles. We'll learn more about transportation
energy in Chapter 18.

Natural Gas
Sometime between 6,000 to 2,000 years BCE (Before the Common Era),
the first discoveries of natural gas seeps were made in Iran. Many early

writers described the natural petroleum seeps in the Middle East,

especially in the Baku region of what is now Azerbaijan. The gas seeps,
probably first ignited by lightning, provided the fuel for the "eternal fires"
of the fire-worshiping religion of the ancient Persians.
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 petroleum underground. It is pumped
from below ground and travels in pipelines to storage areas. The next
chapter looks at that pipeline system.
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.
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 9-1-1 for emergency help.
Saving Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels take millions of years to make. We are using up the fuels that
were made more than 300 million years ago before the time of the
dinosaurs. Once they are gone they are gone.
So, it's best to not waste fossil fuels. They are not renewable; they can't
really be made again. We can save fossil fuels by conserving energy.

Chapter 9: Natural Gas Distribution System

We learned in Chapter 8 that natural gas is a fossil fuel. It is a gaseous
molecule that's made up of two atoms one carbon atom combined with
four hydrogen atom. It's chemical formula is CH4. The picture on the right
is a model of what the molecule could look like.
Don't confuse natural gas with "gasoline," which we call "gas" for short.
Like oil, natural gas is found under ground and under the ocean floor. Wells
are drilled to tap into natural gas reservoirs just like drilling for oil. Once a
drill has hit an area that contains natural gas, it can be brought to the
surface through pipes.
The natural gas has to get from the wells to us. To do that, there is a huge
network of pipelines that brings natural gas from the gas fields to us.
Some of these pipes are two feet wide.
Natural gas is sent in larger pipelines to power plants to make electricity
or to factories because they use lots of gas. Bakeries use natural gas to
heat ovens to bake bread, pies, pastries and cookies. Other businesses
use natural gas for heating their buildings or heating water.
From larger pipelines, the gas goes through smaller and smaller pipes to
your neighborhood.
In businesses and in your home, the natural gas must first pass through a
meter, which measures the amount of fuel going into the building. A gas
company worker reads the meter and the company will charge you for the
amount of natural gas you used.

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.
In some homes, natural gas is used for cooking, heating water and heating
the house in a furnace.
In rural areas, where there are no natural gas pipelines, propane (another
form of gas that's often made when oil is refined) or bottled gas is used
instead of natural gas. Propane is also called LPG, or liquefied petroleum
gas, is made up of methane and a mixture with other gases like butane.
Propane turns to a liquid when it is placed under slight pressure. For
regular natural gas to turn into a liquid, it has to be made very, very cold.
Cars and trucks can also use natural gas as a transportation fuel, but they
must carry special cylinder-like tanks to hold the fuel.
When natural gas is burned to make heat or burned in a car's engine, it
burns very cleanly. When you combine natural gas with oxygen (the
process of combustion), you produce carbon dioxide and water vapor; plus
the energy that's released in heat and light.
Some impurities are contained in all natural gas. These include sulphur
and butane and other chemicals. When burned, those impurities can
create air pollution. The amount of pollution from natural gas is less than
burning a more "complex" fuel like gasoline. Natural gas-powered cars are
more than 90 percent cleaner than a gasoline-powered car.
That's why many people feel natural gas would be a good fuel for cars
because it burns cleanly.

Chapter 10: 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.
Your trash, paper products that can't be recycled into other paper
products, and other household waste are normally sent to the dump. Your
trash contains some types of biomass that can be reused. Recycling
biomass for fuel and other uses cuts down on the need for "landfills" to
hold garbage.
This stuff nobody seems to want can be used to produce electricity, heat,
compost material or fuels. Composting material is decayed plant or food
products mixed together in a compost pile and spread to help plants grow.
California produces more than 60 million bone dry tons of biomass each
year. Of this total, five million bone dry tons is now burned to make
electricity. This is biomass from lumber mill wastes, urban wood waste,
forest and agricultural residues and other feed stocks.
If all of it was used, the 60 million tons of biomass in California could make
close to 2,000 megawatts of electricity for California's growing population
and economy. That's enough energy to make electricity for about two
million homes!
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 (seeChapter
8).

Biomass can also be tapped right at the landfill with burning waster
products. When garbage decomposes, it gives off methane gas. You'll
remember in chapters 8 and 9 that natural gas is made up of methane.
Pipelines are put into the landfills and the methane gas can be collected. It
is then used in power plants to make electricity. This type of biomass is
called landfill gas.
A similar thing can be done at animal feed lots. In places where lots of
animals are raised, the animals - like cattle, cows and even chickens produce manure. When manure decomposes, it also gives off methane gas
similar to garbage. This gas can be burned right at the farm to make
energy to run the farm.
Using biomass can help reduce global warming compared to a fossil fuelpowered plant. Plants use and store carbon dioxide (CO2) when they grow.
CO2 stored in the plant is released when the plant material is burned or
decays. By replanting the crops, the new plants can use the CO2 produced
by the burned plants. So using biomass and replanting helps close the
carbon dioxide cycle. However, if the crops are not replanted, then
biomass can emit carbon dioxide that will contribute toward global
warming.
So, the use of biomass can be 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.
Today, new ways of using biomass are still being discovered. One way is to
produce ethanol, a liquid alcohol fuel. Ethanol can be used in special types
of cars that are made for using alcohol fuel instead of gasoline. The
alcohol can also be combined with gasoline. This reduces our dependence
on oil a non-renewable fossil fuel.

Chapter 11: 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.
Have you ever cut a boiled egg in half? The egg is similar to how the
earth looks like inside. The yellow yolk of the egg is like the core of the
earth. The white part is the mantle of the earth. And the thin shell of the
egg, that would have surrounded the boiled egg if you didn't peel it off, is
like the earth's crust.
Below the crust of the earth, the top layer of the mantle is a hot liquid rock
called magma. The crust of the earth floats on this liquid magma mantle.
When magma breaks through the surface of the earth in a volcano, it is
called lava.
For every 100 meters you go below ground, the temperature of the rock
increases about 3 degrees Celsius. Or for every 328 feet below ground, the
temperature increases 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. So, if you went about
10,000 feet below ground, the temperature of the rock would be hot
enough to boil water.
Deep under the surface, water sometimes makes its way close to the
hot rock and turns into boiling hot water or into steam. The hot water can
reach temperatures of more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit (148 degrees
Celsius). This is hotter than boiling water (212 degrees F / 100 degrees C).
It doesn't turn into steam because it is not in contact with the air.
When this hot water comes up through a crack in the earth, we call it a hot
spring, like Emerald Pool at Yellowstone National Park pictured on the left.
Or, it sometimes explodes into the air as a geyser, like Old Faithful Geyser
pictured on the right.

About 10,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians used hot springs in North

American for cooking. Areas around hot springs were neutral zones.
Warriors of fighting tribes would bathe together in peace. Every major hot
spring in the United States can be associated with Native American tribes.
California hot springs, like at the Geysers in the Napa area, were important
and sacred areas to tribes from that area.
In other places around the world, people used hot springs for rest and
relaxation. The ancient Romans built elaborate buildings to enjoy hot
baths, and the Japanese have enjoyed natural hot springs for centuries.
Geothermal Today
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 on the right.
In San Bernardino, in Southern California, hot water from below ground is
used to heat buildings during the winter. The hot water runs through miles
of insulated pipes to dozens of public buildings. The City Hall, animal
shelters, retirement homes, state agencies, a hotel and convention center
are some of the buildings which are heated this way.
In the Country of Iceland, many of the buildings and even swimming pools
in the capital of Reykjavik (RECK-yah-vick) and elsewhere are heated with
geothermal hot water. The country has at least 25 active volcanoes and
many hot springs and geysers.
Geothermal Electricity
Hot water or steam from below ground can also be used to make
electricity in a geothermal power plant.
In California, there are 14 areas where we use geothermal energy to make
electricity. The red areas on the map show where there are known
geothermal areas. Some are not used yet because the resource is too
small, too isolated or the water temperatures are not hot enough to make
electricity.
The main spots are:

The Geysers area north of San Francisco

In the northwest corner of the state near Lassen Volcanic National Park
In the Mammoth Lakes area - the site of a huge ancient volcano
In the Coso Hot Springs area in Inyo County
In the Imperial Valley in Southern California.
Some of the areas have so much steam and hot water that it can be used
to generate electricity. Holes are drilled into the ground and pipes lowered
into the hot water, like a drinking straw in a soda. The hot steam or water
comes up through these pipes from below ground.

You can see the pipes running in front of the geothermal power plant in
the picture. This power plant is Geysers Unit # 18 located in the Geysers
Geothermal area of California.
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.
The white "smoke" rising from the plants in the photograph above is not
smoke. It is steam given off in the cooling process. The cooled water can
then be pumped back below ground to be reheated by the earth.
Here's a cut-away showing the inside of the power plant. The hot water
flows into turbine and out of the turbine. The turn 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. We learned about transmission lines in Chapter 7.

California's geothermal power plants produce about one-half of the world's

geothermally generated electricity. The geothermal power plants produce
enough electricity for about two million homes.
Geothermal / Ground Source Heat Pumps

Though it gets much hotter as we go deep below ground, the upper layer
of the earth close to the surface is not very hot.
Almost everywhere across the entire planet, the upper 10 feet below
ground level stays the same temperature, between 50 and 60 degrees
Fahrenheit (10 and 16 degrees C). If you've ever been in a basement of a
building or in a cavern below ground, the temperature of the area is
almost always cool.
A geothermal or ground source heat pump system can use that constant
temperature to heat or cool a building. Pipes are buried in the ground near
the building. Inside these pipes a fluid, like the antifreeze in a car radiator,
is circulated.
In winter, heat from the warmer ground goes through the heat exchanger
of a heat pump, which sends warm air into the home or business. During
hot weather, the process is reversed. Hot air from inside the building goes
through the heat exchanger and the heat is passed into the relatively
cooler ground. Heat removed during the summer can also be used to heat
water.
For another FLASH "movie" about how ground source heat pumps work, go
to the GeoExchange website
at: http://www.ghpc.org/about/movie.htm.

Chapter 12: Hydro Power

When it rains in hills and mountains, the water becomes streams and
rivers that run down to the ocean. The moving or falling water can be used
to do work. Energy, you'll remember is the ability to do work. So moving
water, which has kinetic energy, can be used
to make electricity.
For hundreds of years, moving water was used to turn wooden wheels that
were attached to grinding wheels to grind (or mill) flour or corn. These
were called grist mills or water mills.
In the year 1086, the Domesday Book was written. The multi-volume
books are very large. Hand-written on the pages of the books are lists of
all properties, homes, stores and other things in England. The Domesday
Book listed 5,624 waterwheel-driven mills in England south of the Trent
River. That was about one mill for each 400 people.
Water can either go over the top of the wheel like in the photograph on
the left, or the wheel can be placed in the moving river. The flow of the
river then turns the wheel at the bottom like in the moving graphic on the
right.
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 Like the picture of Shasta Dam in Northern
California pictured on the right. Dams are also built across larger rivers but
no reservoir is made. The river is simply sent through a hydroelectric
power plant or powerhouse. You can see this in the picture of The Dalles
Dam on the Columbia River along the border of Oregon and Washington
State.
Hydro is one of the largest producers of electricity in the United States.
Water power supplies about 10 percent of the entire electricity that we
use. In states with high mountains and lots of rivers, even more electricity
if made by hydro power. In California, for example, about 15 percent of all
the electricity comes from hydroelectric.
The state of Washington leads the nation in
hydroelectricity. The Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph and John Day dams are
three of six major dams on the Columbia River. About 87 percent of the
electricity made in Washington state is produced by hydroelectric facilities.
Some of that electricity is exported from the state and used in other
states.

How a Hydro Dam Works

The water behind the dam flows through the intake and into a pipe called
a penstock. The water pushes against blades in a turbine, causing them to
turn. The turbine is similar to the kind used in a power plant that we
learned about in Chapter 6. But instead of using steam to turn the
turbine, water is used.
The turbine spins a generator to produce electricity. The electricity can
then travel over long distance electric lines to your home, to your school,
to factories and businesses.
Hydro power today can be found in the mountainous areas of states where
there are lakes and reservoirs and along rivers.

Chapter 13: Nuclear Energy Fission and Fusion

Another major form of energy is nuclear energy, the energy that is trapped
inside each atom. One of the laws of the universe is that matter and
energy can't be created nor destroyed. But they can be changed in form.
Matter can be changed into energy. The world's most famous
scientist, Albert Einstein, created the mathematical formula that
explains this. It is:

This equation says:

E [energy] equals m [mass] times c2 [c stands for the velocity or the
speed of light.c2 means c times c, or the speed of light raised to the
second power or c-squared.]
You can listen to Einstein's voice explaining this at:
www.aip.org/history/einstein/voice1.htm

Please note that some web browser software may not show an exponent
(raising something to a power, a mathematical expression) on the
Internet. Normally c-squared is shown with a smaller "2" placed above and
to the right of the c.
Scientists used Einstein's famous equation as the key to unlock atomic
energy and also create atomic bombs.
The ancient Greeks said the smallest part of nature is an atom. But they
did not know 2,000 years ago about nature's even smaller parts.
As we learned in chapter 2, atoms are made up of smaller particles -- a
nucleus of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons which swirl
around the nucleus much like the earth revolves around the sun.
Nuclear Fission
An atom's nucleus can be split apart. When this is done, a tremendous
amount of energy is released. The energy is both heat and light energy.
Einstein said that a very small amount of matter contains a very LARGE
amount of energy. This energy, when let out slowly, can be harnessed to
generate electricity. When it is let out all at once, it can make a
tremendous explosion in an atomic bomb.
A nuclear power plant (like Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant shown below)
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.
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.
If the reaction is not controlled, you could have an atomic bomb. But in
atomic bombs, almost pure pieces of the element Uranium-235 or
Plutonium, of a precise mass and shape, must be brought together and
held together, with great force. These conditions are not present in a
nuclear reactor.
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.

Power plant drawing courtesy Nuclear Institute

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

Another form of nuclear energy is called fusion. Fusion means joining

smaller nuclei (the plural of nucleus) to make a larger nucleus. The sun
uses nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. This gives off
heat and light and other radiation.
In the picture to the right, two types of hydrogen atoms, deuterium and
tritium, combine to make a helium atom and an extra particle called a
neutron.
Also given off in this fusion reaction is energy! Thanks to the University of
California, Berkeley for the picture.
Scientists have been working on controlling nuclear fusion for a long time,
trying to make a fusion reactor to produce electricity. But they have been
having trouble learning how to control the reaction in a contained space.
What's better about nuclear fusion is that it creates less radioactive
material than fission, and its supply of fuel can last longer than the sun.

Chapter 14: Ocean Energy

The world's ocean may eventually provide us with energy to power our
homes and businesses. Right now, there are very few ocean energy power
plants and most are fairly small. But how can we get energy from the
ocean?
There are three basic ways to tap the ocean for its energy. We can use
the ocean's waves, we can use the ocean's high and low tides, or we can
use temperature differences in the water. Let's take a look at each.
Wave Energy
Kinetic energy (movement) exists in the moving waves of the ocean. That
energy can be used to power a turbine. In this simple example, to the
right, the wave rises into a chamber. The rising water forces the air out of
the chamber. The moving air spins a turbine which can turn a generator.
When the wave goes down, air flows through the turbine and back into the
chamber through doors that are normally closed.
This is only one type of wave-energy system. Others actually use the up
and down motion of the wave to power a piston that moves up and down
inside a cylinder. That piston can also turn a generator.

Most wave-energy systems are very small. But, they can be used to power
a warning buoy or a small light house.
Tidal Energy
Another form of ocean energy is called tidal energy. When tides comes into
the shore, they can be trapped in reservoirs behind dams. Then when the
tide drops, the water behind the dam can be let out just like in a regular
hydroelectric power plant.
Tidal energy has been used since about the 11th Century, when small
dams were built along ocean estuaries and small streams. the tidal water
behind these dams was used to turn water wheels to mill grains.
In order for tidal energy to work well, you need large increases in tides. An
increase of at least 16 feet between low tide to high tide is needed. There
are only a few places where this tide change occurs around the earth.
Some power plants are already operating using this idea. One plant in
France makes enough energy from tides (240 megawatts) to power
240,000 homes.
This facility is called the La Rance Station in France. It began making
electricity in 1966. It produces about one fifth of a regular nuclear or coalfired power plant. It is more than 10 times the power of the next largest
tidal station in the world, the 17 megawatt Canadian Annapolis station.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)
The idea is not new. Using the temperature of water to make energy
actually dates back to 1881 when a French Engineer by the name of
Jacques D'Arsonval first thought of OTEC. The final ocean energy idea uses
temperature differences in the ocean. If you ever went swimming in the
ocean and dove deep below the surface, you would have noticed that the
water gets colder the deeper you go. It's warmer on the surface because
sunlight warms the water. But below the surface, the ocean gets very cold.
That's why scuba divers wear wet suits when they dive down deep. Their
wet suits trapped their body heat to keep them warm.
Power plants can be built that use this difference in temperature to make
energy. A difference of at least 38 degrees Fahrenheit is needed between
the warmer surface water and the colder deep ocean water.
Using this type of energy source is called Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion or OTEC. It is being demonstrated in Hawaii. More info on OTEC
can be found on the archive pages for the Natural Energy Laboratory of
Hawaii at:www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/otec-nelha/otec.html

Chapter 15: Solar Energy

We have always used the energy of the sun as far back as humans have
existed on this planet. As far back as 5,000 years ago, people
"worshipped" the sun. Ra, the sun-god, who was considered the first king
of Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the sun-god Shamash was a major deity and
was equated with justice. In Greece there were two sun deities, Apollo and
Helios. The influence of the sun also appears in other religions
Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Roman religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, the
Druids of England, the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and many
Native American tribes.
We know today, that the sun is simply our nearest star. Without it, life
would not exist on our planet. We use the sun's energy every day in many
different ways.
When we hang laundry outside to dry in the sun, we are using the sun's
heat to do work drying our clothes.
Plants use the sun's light to make food. Animals eat plants for food. And as
we learned in Chapter 5, decaying plants hundreds of millions of years
ago produced the coal, oil and natural gas that we use today. So, fossil
fuels is actually sunlight stored millions and millions of years ago.
Indirectly, the sun or other stars are responsible for ALL our energy. Even
nuclear energy comes from a star because the uranium atoms used in
nuclear energy were created in the fury of a nova a star exploding.
Let's look at ways in which we can use the sun's energy.

Solar Hot Water

In the 1890s solar water heaters were being used all over the United
States. They proved to be a big improvement over wood and coal-burning
stoves. Artificial gas made from coal was available too to heat water, but it
cost 10 times the price we pay for natural gas today. And electricity was
even more expensive if you even had any in your town!
Many homes used solar water heaters. In 1897, 30 percent of the
homes in Pasadena, just east of Los Angeles, were equipped with solar
water heaters. As mechanical improvements were made, solar systems
were used in Arizona, Florida and many other sunny parts of the United
States. The picture shown here is a solar water heater installed on the
front roof of a house in Pomona Valley, California, in 1911 (the panels are
circled above the four windows).
By 1920, ten of thousands of solar water heaters had been sold. By then,
however, large deposits of oil and natural gas were discovered in the
western United States. As these low cost fuels became available, solar
water systems began to be replaced with heaters burning fossil fuels.
Today, solar water heaters are making a comeback. There are more than
half a million of them in California alone! They heat water for use inside
homes and businesses. They also heat swimming pools like in the
picture.
Panels on the roof of a building, like this one on the right, contain water
pipes. When the sun hits the panels and the pipes, the sunlight warms
them.
That warmed water can then be used in a swimming pool.
Solar Thermal Electricity
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. That steam can then
be used to turn a turbine to make electricity.
In California's Mojave desert, there are huge rows of solar mirrors arranged
in what's called "solar thermal power plants" that use this idea to make
electricity for more than 350,000 homes. The problem with solar energy is
that it works only when the sun is shining. So, on cloudy days and at night,
the power plants can't create energy. Some solar plants, are a "hybrid"
technology. During the daytime they use the sun. At night and on cloudy
days they burn natural gas to boil the water so they can continue to make
electricity.

Another form of solar power plants to make electricity is called a Central

Tower Power Plant, like the one to the right - the Solar Two Project.
Sunlight is reflected off 1,800 mirrors circling the tall tower. The mirrors
are called heliostats and move and turn to face the sun all day long.
The light is reflected back to the top of the tower in the center of the
circle where a fluid is turned very hot by the sun's rays. That fluid can be
used to boil water to make steam to turn a turbine and a generator.
This experimental power plant is called Solar II. It was re-built in
California's desert using newer technologies than when it was first built in
the early 1980s. Solar II will use the sunlight to change heat into
mechanical energy in the turbine.
The power plant will make enough electricity to power about 10,000
homes. Scientists say larger central tower power plants can make
electricity for 100,000 to 200,000 homes.
Solar Cells or Photovoltaic 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. They were first developed in the 1950s for use on U.S. space
satellites. They are made of silicon, a special type of melted sand.
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.
These individual solar cells are arranged together in a PV module and
the modules are grouped together in an array. Some of the arrays are set
on special tracking devices to follow sunlight all day long.
The electrical energy from solar cells can then be used directly. It can be
used in a home for lights and appliances. It can be used in a business.
Solar energy can be stored in batteries to light a roadside billboard at
night. Or the energy can be stored in a battery for an emergency roadside
cellular telephone when no telephone wires are around.
Some experimental cars also use PV cells. They convert
sunlight directly into energy to power electric motors on the car.
But when most of us think of solar energy, we think of satellites in outer
space. Here's a picture of solar panels extending out from a satellite.

Chapter 16: 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.
When a boat lifts a sail, it is using wind energy to push it through the
water. This is one form of work.
Farmers have been using wind energy for many years to pump water from
wells using windmills like the one on the right.
In Holland, windmills have been used for centuries to pump water from
low-lying areas.
Wind is also used to turn large grinding stones to grind wheat or corn, just
like a water wheel is turned by water power.
Today, the wind is also used to make electricity.
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.
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.
If the wind gets too high, the turbine has a brake that will keep the blades
from turning too fast and being damaged.
You can use a single smaller wind turbine to power a home or a school. A
small turbine makes enough energy for a house. In the picture on the left,

the children at this Iowa school are playing beneath a wind turbine that
makes enough electricity to power their entire school.
We have many windy areas in California. And wind is blowing in many
places all over the earth. The only problem with wind is that it is not windy
all the time. In California, it is usually windier during the summer months
when wind rushes inland from cooler areas, like the ocean to replace hot
rising air in California's warm central valleys and deserts.
In order for a wind turbine to work efficiently, wind speeds usually must be
above 12 to 14 miles per hour. Wind has to be this speed to turn the
turbines fast enough to generate electricity. The turbines usually produce
about 50 to 300 kilowatts of electricity each. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts (kilo
means 1,000). You can light ten 100 watt light bulbs with 1,000 watts. So,
a 300 kilowatt (300,000 watts) wind turbine could light up 3,000 light
bulbs that use 100 watts!
As of 1999, there were 11,368 wind turbines in California. These turbines
are grouped together in what are called wind "farms," like those in Palm
Springs in the picture on the right. These wind farms are located mostly in
the three windiest areas of the state:

Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco

San Gorgonio Pass, near Palm Springs
Tehachapi, south of Bakersfield
Together these three places in California make enough electricity to supply
an entire city the size of San Francisco! About 11 percent of the entire
world's wind-generated electricity is found in California. Other countries
that use a lot of wind energy are Denmark
and Germany.
Once electricity is made by the turbine, the electricity from the entire wind
farm is collected together and sent through a transformer. There the
voltage is increase to send it long distances over high power lines.

Chapter 17: Renewable Energy vs. Fossil Fuels

In Chapter 8, we discussed the world's supply of fossil fuels oil, coal
and natural gas and how it is being depleted slowly because of constant
use. Fossil fuels are not renewable, they can't be made again. Once they
are gone, they're gone.
In Chapters 11 to 16, we learned that there's no shortage of renewable
energy from the sun, wind and water and even stuff usually thought of as
garbage dead trees, tree branches, yard clippings, left-over crops,
sawdust, even livestock manure, can produce electricity and fuels
resources collectively called "biomass."
The sunlight falling on the United States in one day contains more than
twice the energy we consume in an entire year. California has enough
wind gusts to produce 11 percent of the world's wind electricity. Clean
energy sources can be harnessed to produce electricity, process heat, fuel
and valuable chemicals with less impact on the environment.
In contrast, emissions from cars fueled by gasoline and factories and other
facilities that burn oil affect the atmosphere. Foul air results in so-called
greenhouse gases. About -81% of all U.S. greenhouse gases are carbon
dioxide emissions from energy-related sources.
Renewable energy resource development will result in new jobs for people
and less oil we have to buy from foreign countries. According to the
federal government, America spent $109 billion to import oil in 2000. If we
fully develop self-renewing resources, we will keep the money at home to
help the economy.
Continued research has made renewable energy more affordable today
than 25 years ago. The cost of wind energy has declined from 40 cents per
kilowatt-hour to less than 5 cents. The cost of electricity from the sun,
through photovoltaics (literally meaning "light-electricity") has dropped
from more than $1/kilowatt-hour in 1980 to nearly 20cents/kilowatt-hour

today. And ethanol fuel costs have plummeted from $4 per gallon in the
early 1980s to $1.20 today.
But there are also drawbacks to renewable energy development.
For example, solar thermal energy involving the collection of solar rays
through collectors (often times huge mirrors) need large tracts of land as a
collection site. This impacts the natural habitat, meaning the plants and
animals that live there. The environment is also impacted when the
buildings, roads, transmission lines and transformers are built. The fluid
most often used with solar thermal electric generation is very toxic and
spills can happen.
Solar or PV cells use the same technologies as the production of silicon
chips for computers. The manufacturing process uses toxic chemicals.
Toxic chemicals are also used in making batteries to store solar electricity
through the night and on cloudy days.. Manufacturing this equipment has
environmental impacts.
Also, even if we wanted to switch to solar energy right away, we still have
a big problem. All the solar production facilities in the entire world only
make enough solar cells to produce about 350 megawatts, about enough
for a city of 300,000 people. that's a drop in the bucket compared to our
needs. California alone needs about 55,000 megawatts of electricity on a
sunny, hot summer day. And the cost of producing that much electricity
would be about four times more expensive than a regular natural gas-fired
power plant.
So, even though the renewable power plant doesn't release air pollution or
use precious fossil fuels, it still has an impact on the environment.
Wind power development too, has its downside, mostly involving land use.
The average wind farm requires 17 acres of land to produce one megawatt
of electricity, about enough electricity for 750 to 1,000 homes. However,
farms and cattle grazing can use the same land under the wind turbines.
Wind farms could cause erosion in desert areas. Most often, winds farms
affect the natural view because they tend to be located on or just below
ridgelines. Bird deaths also occur due to collisions with wind turbines and
associated wires. This issue is the subject of on-going research.
Producing geothermal electricity from the earth's crust tends to be
localized. That means facilities have to be built where geothermal energy
is abundant. There are several geothermal resource locations in California.
The Geysers area north of San Francisco is an example. In the course of
geothermal production, steam coming from the ground becomes very
caustic at times, causing pipes to corrode and fall apart. Geothermal
power plants sometimes cost a little bit more than a gas-fired power plant
because they have to include the cost to drill.
Environmental concerns are associated with dams to produce
hydroelectric power. People are displaced and prime farmland and forests

are lost in the flooded areas above dams. Downstream, dams change the
chemical, physical and biological characteristics of the river and land.
Unlike fossil fuels, which dirties the atmosphere, renewable energy has
less impact on the environment Renewable energy production has some
drawbacks, mainly associated with the use of large of tracts of land that
affects animal habitats and outdoor scenery. Renewable energy
development will result in jobs and less oil imported from foreign
countries.
Note: For those working on a school assignment comparing renewable vs.
non-renewable energy, we'd suggest creating a Pro and Con list for each
energy source. That will give you a a way to compare the various energy
resources.

Chapter 18: Energy for Transportation

In California, about one-half of ALL the energy we use goes into
transportation cars, planes, trucks, motorcycles, trains, buses. And of all
the oil we use in the state about three-quarters of all it goes into making
gasoline and diesel fuel for vehicles.
As we learned in Chapter 8, oil goes through a refinery where it is
made into many different products. Some of them are used for
transportation: aviation fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel. From the refinery
and larger storage tank farms, transportation fuels are usually trucked to
service stations in tanker trucks. These trucks can hold 10,000 gallons in
each tank. The tanker trucks deliver the gasoline to the services stations.
At service stations, the two grades of gasoline, regular and premium, are
kept in separate underground storage tanks. When you pump the gasoline
into your car, you are pumping it from those tanks below ground. Midgrade gasoline is a combination of the two types. Other vehicles, such as
trucks and some cars use diesel fuel, which is also made from oil. It is
brought to service stations the same way.
California has more than 26 million vehicles on its roads. All the vehicles in
the state used 14.4 billion gallons of gasoline in 2001. That's more
gasoline that all other countries except for the United States and the
former Soviet Union. This makes California the third-largest user of
gasoline in the world!
Fourteen billion gallons of gasoline is enough to fill a line of
10,000 gallon tanker trucks stretched bumper to bumper from San
Francisco to San Diego, back to San Francisco, and then part of
the way to Sacramento!

Burning gasoline, however, creates air pollution. That's why oil companies
are creating newer types of gasoline that are cleaner than the kind we use
today. Beginning in 1996, all the gasoline sold in California will be this
newer, cleaner type called "reformulated gasoline." The main ingredient in
that gas, however, MTBE was found to hurt water supplies if it leaked. So,
that additive is being removed by 2005.
Another concern about using oil for transportation is that a lot of oil used
comes form the Middle East. This makes the U.S. very vulnerable if there is
political unrest. During the 1970s, Americans saw long lines at the gas
pumps because oil from the Middle East was turned off by the Oil
Producing Exposting Countries - OPEC. And we're in in worse shape in
2002 because we're importing more and more oil form the Middle East
than ever before.
Because of concerns about air pollution and petroleum-dependence, new
clean-burning fuels made from fuels other than oil are being introduced.
These fuels include methanol, ethanol, natural gas, propane and even
electricity. The car on the right uses methanol, the same fuel used in
Indianapolis Speedway race cars.
All these fuels are called alternative fuels
because they are an alternative to gasoline and diesel. Cars and trucks
that use them are called Alternative Fuel Vehicles or AFVs.
Right now, there are only a small number of cars and trucks that are
running on fuels other than gasoline and diesel. Energy officials hope,
however, that one-quarter of all the vehicles will run on alternative fuels
by the year 2025.
For more on alternative fuel vehicles, we have a whole section on Energy
Quest. Go to our Transportation Section.

Chapter 19: Saving Energy and Energy Conservation

Some of the energy we can use is called renewable energy. These include
solar, wind, geothermal and hydro. These types of energy are constantly
being renewed or restored.
But many of the other forms of energy we use in
our homes and cars are not being replenished. Fossil fuels took millions of
years to create. They cannot be made over night.
And there are finite or limited amounts of these non-renewable energy
sources. That means they cannot be renewed or replenished. Once they
are gone they cannot be used again. So, we must all do our part in saving
as much energy as we can.
In your home, you can save energy by turning off appliances, TVs and
radios that are not being used, watched or listened
to.
You can turn off lights when no one is in the room.
By putting insulation in walls and attics, we can reduce the amount of
energy it takes to heat or cool our homes.
Insulating a home is like putting on a sweater or jacket when we're cold...
instead of turning up the heat.
The outer layers trap the heat inside, keeping it nice and warm.
New space-age materials are being developed that insulate even better.
This person's fingers are protected by Aerogel Insulation Material created
by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The person cannot even
feel the flame!

Recycling
To make all of our newspapers, aluminum cans, plastic bottles and other
goods takes lots of energy.
Recycling these items grinding them up
and reusing the material again uses less energy than it takes to make
them from brand new, raw material.
So, we must all recycle as much as we can.
We can also save energy in our cars and trucks.
Make sure the tires are properly inflated.
A car that is tuned up, has clean air and oil filters, and is running right will
use less gasoline.
Don't over-load a car. For every extra 100 pounds, you cut your mileage by
one mile per gallon.
When your parents buy a new car, tell them to compare the fuel efficiency
of different models and buy a car that gets higher miles per gallon.
You can also save energy in your school.
Each week you can choose an energy monitor who will make sure energy
is being used properly.
The energy monitor will turn off the lights during recess and after class.
You can make "Turn It Off" signs for hanging above the light switches to
remind yourself.
Also check out our on-line pages on Saving Energy.
You can make sure your classmates recycle all aluminum cans and plastic
bottles, and make sure the library is recycling the newspapers and the
school is recycling its paper.

Chapter 20: Hydrogen and Future Energy Sources

We learned in Chapter 8 that fossil fuels were formed before and during
the time of the dinosaurs when plants and animals died. Their
decomposed remains gradually changed over the years to form coal, oil
and natural gas. Fossil fuels took millions of years to make. We are using
up the fuels formed more than 65 million years ago. They can't be
renewed; they can't be made again. We can save fossil fuels by conserving
and finding ways to harness energy from seemingly "endless sources," like
the sun and the wind.
We can't use fossil fuels forever as they are a non-renewable and finite
resource. Some people suggest that we should start using hydrogen.
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas that accounts for 75 percent of the
entire universe's mass. Hydrogen is found on Earth only in combination
with other elements such as oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. To use
hydrogen, it must be separated from these other elements.
Today, hydrogen is used primarily in ammonia manufacturing, petroleum
refining and synthesis of methanol. It's also used in NASA's space program
as fuel for the space shuttles, and in fuel cells that provide heat, electricity
and drinking water for astronauts. Fuel cells are devices that directly
convert hydrogen into electricity. In the future, hydrogen could be used to
fuel vehicles (such as the DaimlerChrysler NeCar 4shown in the picture to
the right) and aircraft, and provide power for our homes and offices.
Hydrogen can be made from molecules called hydrocarbons by applying
heat, a process known as "reforming" hydrogen. This process makes
hydrogen from natural gas. An electrical current can also be used to
separate water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen in a process
called electrolysis. Some algae and bacteria, using sunlight as their energy
source, give off hydrogen under certain conditions.
Hydrogen as a fuel is high in energy, yet a machine that burns pure
hydrogen produces almost zero pollution. NASA has used liquid hydrogen
since the 1970s to propel rockets and now the space shuttle into orbit.

Hydrogen fuel cells power the shuttle's electrical systems, producing a

clean by-product pure water, which the crew drinks.
You can think of a fuel cell as a battery that is constantly replenished by
adding fuel to it it never loses its charge.
Fuel Cell Uses
Fuel cells are a promising technology for use as a source of heat and
electricity in buildings, and as an electrical power source for vehicles.
Auto companies are working on building cars and trucks that use fuel cells.
In a fuel cell vehicle, an electrochemical device converts hydrogen (stored
on board) and oxygen from the air into electricity, to drive an electric
motor and power the vehicle.
Although these applications would ideally run off pure hydrogen, in the
near term they are likely to be fueled with natural gas, methanol or even
gasoline. Reforming these fuels to create hydrogen will allow the use of
much of our current energy infrastructure gas stations, natural gas
pipelines, etc. while fuel cells are phased in.
In the future, hydrogen could also join electricity as an important energy
carrier. An energy carrier stores, moves and delivers energy in a usable
form to consumers.
Renewable energy sources, like the sun, can't produce energy all the time.
The sun doesn't always shine. But hydrogen can store this energy until it is
needed and can be transported to where it is needed.
Some experts think that hydrogen will form the basic energy infrastructure
that will power future societies, replacing today's natural gas, oil, coal, and
electricity infrastructures. They see a new "hydrogen economy" to replace
our current "fossil fuel-based economy," although that vision probably
won't happen until far in the future.
Solar Power Satellites
One suggestion for energy in the future is to put huge solar power
satellites into orbit around the earth. They would collect solar energy from
the sun, convert it to electricity and beam it to Earth as microwaves or
some other form of transmission. The power would have no greenhouse
gas emissions, but microwave beams might affect health adversely. And
frequent rocket launches may harm the upper atmosphere. This idea may
not be practical for another century; if at all.
The picture on the right is an early and simple drawing of how a space
solar power satellite would beam energy to electrical power grid on Earth.
Other Ideas
Some people have claimed they've invented a machine that will "save the
planet." Others are convinced that there's a vast conspiracy by fossil fuel

and / or nuclear power companies to stop such devices from getting to the
public.
Some of these contraptions use theories called "Free Energy," "Over Unity"
or "Zero-Point Energy." As a matter of fact, you can find all sorts of
information about such devices on the Internet. Just plug in any of those
words.
But none of these devices have ever been proven, either theoretically or
physically. The "free energy" area is filled with con artists selling
unintelligible information, often clouded with technical sounding jargon,
and seeking people with money to develop their inventions or ideas.
As the old saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted."
Most of these devices are perpetual motion machines, which violate
known laws of science. Even the U.S. Patent Office will not issue a patent
for such devices. With energy and the universe (at least as we know it
today), there's no such thing as a free lunch; or free energy. You can't get
energy from nothing because of the fundamental laws of physics that
energy cannot be created or destroyed.
What about matter and anti-matter? What about energy that they use on
Star Trek and in other science fiction stories? The ideas are interesting, but
they are still fiction. Though science fiction has a basis in some fact. Jules
Verne wrote about traveling under the water more than a hundred years
ago, and today we have submarines. He also wrote about going to the
moon, and in 1969 humans first set foot on our closest neighbor in space.
So, while some ideas being used by writers are fiction... there could be
some basis in fact. Who knows, someone might create a mater-antimatter
energy system that could revolutionize the way we think about energy and
our universe.