February 5 - 9, 2018

C1: Energy Sources

A good energy source should contain a large quantity of potential energy and said potential energy should be able to be released or converted, at a reasonable rate, to a useful form with minimal pollution and unwanted products.  If the conversion is too fast, a large quantity of the energy is dispersed, and if it's too slow, it isn't useful.

All energy conversions undergo some form of quality degradation as some of the energy is dispersed as heat.  The energy and materials in the original source change from a concentrated to dispersed form and the energy available to do useful work diminishes.

​The videos below talk about useful energy source requirements and calculating efficiency.

The more quality of energy is degraded, the less efficient the fuel is:

efficiency of energy transfer = (useful output energy/total input energy) * 100.  See the worked example on p. 655.

Energy density (ED) is a useful measure of the quality of a fuel that compares the energy released per unit volume:

energy density = energy released from fuel/volume of fuel consumed 

Specific energy (SE) is the energy contained per unit mass of a fuel:

specific energy = energy released from fuel/mass of fuel consumed.  See the worked example on p. 656.

This last video talks about renewable energy resources.  At the end, Mr. Thornley lists energy resources, both renewable and non-renewable.