| Overview |
| General background - market economy |
| General background - carbon trading |
| Brief notes on "comments on the Stern Review by leading economists" and links to them |
 |
| Overview |
| Basic science of Carbon including the carbon cycle |
| Photosynthesis & Respiration |
| Combustion - Energy production from carbon based fuels - the science |
 |
| Overview |
| Energy production from carbon based fuels (technology) |
| Alternative sources |
| Innovation and development |
 |
| Overview |
| Forest, Ice and Ocean |
| Land usage and impact on climate |
| Developing nations, including political aspects |
| Social change, population and industry |
 |
| Overview |
| Lesson plans, guides and pedagogy |
| Activities, tasks and assignments |
| Questions & Discussions |
| Software, Web 2.0 tools and data including images etc |
 |
| Glossary of terms, acronyms etc |
| Links to relevant sections in main National curriculum, GCSE and GCE syllabuses |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Overview In
order to meet our energy requirements, whether from fossil fuels or other
sources, we rely on technology to create workable plant, in particular power
stations. Whilst some energy sources can be used more directly e.g. geothermal
energy for domestic heating in Iceland or the use of gas in the UK, in practice
energy production concerns the generation, transmission and distribution
of electricity. It is the technology which determines the efficiency with
which we extract the energy from the fuel or energy source, and connect
this to existing infrastructure e.g. the national grid. It is also the technology
which determines the quantity and nature of other outputs in particular
pollutants and waste. Recently much focus has been on how to reduce these,
render them less harmful or ideally convert them to something useful. It
is important to distinguish between fossil and non-fossil carbon based fuels.
Currently fossil fuels dominate but e.g. bio-ethanol from wheat, methane
from silage or even rapidly grown willow could fuel energy production and
would not add to the carbon emissions problem. In this section we initially consider the dominant energy production from carbon based fuels before then considering alternatives. However technology also offers new opportunities through innovation and further development which will lead to novel solutions to energy problems including those which will enable hitherto inefficient or uneconomic approaches to be entertained. |
 Electricity
generation (wikipedia)Fuel
input for UK electricity generation: 1990 and 2005Possible
industrial uses of non-food cropsAssociation
of electricity producersGermany
plans C02-free power plant Impact
of Soot on Global WarmingImpact
of Soot on Global Warming (2)Particles
Change How Much Carbon Plants Absorb |
|||||
