Questions and Problems
- In Example
2.2 it is shown that gasoline costs more per Btu than does
natural gas. Why then do we power our cars and trucks predominantly with
gasoline rather than natural gas?
- Why are fossil fuels not being created
in nature fast enough to keep up with our use of them?
- Why is two-thirds of the petroleum
left in the ground after the primary extraction process comes to an end?
Can this problem be overcome?
- If there were
originally 30 billion barrels of recoverable oil in
Alaska, for how many years could the United States supply its present
demand from that source alone?
- On a worldwide basis, how much
remaining oil is there per person? How does this compare to the remaining
oil per person in the United States?
- What is oil shale and how can it be
converted into useful fuels for transportation and heating?
- If your home requires one million Btu
of heat energy from the furnace on a cold winter day, what is the cost in
dollars to heat the house with natural gas, assuming a 60% furnace
efficiency?
- How many pounds of western
subbituminous coal would be needed to heat the house in problem 7 with a
60% efficient furnace?
- What measures would you recommend being
enacted by the U.S. Congress to promote the conservation of fossil fuels?
- How many tons of oil shale are
required each day to supply a 10,000 bbl/day retort, if the
shale yields 25 gallons per ton?
- How much energy, in foot-pounds, is
needed to raise one barrel of oil 25,000 feet? How much is this
energy in terms of the heat energy content, in equivalent barrels of oil?
Assume that the oil weighs 7.0 lb/gal.
- It has been estimated that a person
can perform continuous manual labor at a power
of 50 watts for an 8-hour working day. How many pounds of
coal contain the energy equivalent of the useful physical labor a person
can perform in this time period? How many gallons of oil?
Multiple Choice Questions
- A bacterial colony starts growing in a
jar at about 11:00 A.M. The size of the colony doubles each
minute, and the jar is just full at 12:00 noon. At what time was the
jar 1/8 full? See Appendix
A.
a)
11:07
b)
11:15
c)
11:30
d)
11:36
e)
11:45
f)
11:56
g)
11:57
h)
11:58
- Coal, oil, and gas represent
approximately ___%, ___%, and ___%, respectively, of the U.S. fossil fuel
energy use.
a)
23,
44, 33
b)
25,
20, 55
c)
90, 5,
5
d)
35,
35, 30
e)
52,
38, 10
- In the United States the total energy
consumed per year per person is the equivalent of about ___ barrels of
oil.
a)
5.8
b)
58
c)
580
d)
5800
- The declining order of importance for
the various energy sources in the United States is
a)
natural
gas, oil, coal, nuclear, hydro
b)
oil,
coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro
c)
oil,
natural gas, coal, hydro, nuclear
d)
coil,
oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear
- A reasonable estimate for Q∞ (petroleum)
for the United States, including Alaska and offshore oil, is about
a)
324×109 bbl
b)
250×106 bbl
c)
113×109 bbl
d)
420×109 bbl
e)
55×109 bbl
f)
113×106 bbl
g)
165×108 bbl
h)
Unknown
- The total annual energy consumption in
the United States is about ___ QBtu, and this is the equivalent of about
___ tons of coal per year for each person.
a)
80, 10
b)
800,
130
c)
8000,
1.4
d)
98, 13
- One of the problems of producing shale
oil is the amount of water needed for aboveground retorting. The engineers
designing this process estimate that about ___ barrels of water are needed
for each barrel of oil produced.
a)
300
b)
30
c)
3
d)
0.3
- In tar sands, the organic material
that contains the oil and that surrounds the grains of sand is
a)
kerogen
b)
kerosene
c)
marlstone
d)
bitumen
e)
paraffin
- The energy content of the recoverable
conventional fossil fuels remaining in the United States are in the ratio
of approximately ___ to ___ to ___ for petroleum, natural gas, and coal,
respectively.
a)
1,
1.8, 5.6
b)
1,
0.5, 15
c)
1,
0.75, 58
d)
1,
0.2, 150
e)
1, 3,
150
f)
1,
0.2, 28
g)
1, 1,
98
h)
1, 1,
1
- The coal that we burn in our power
plants today represents solar energy trapped in organic molecules about
___ years ago.
a)
300,000
b)
3,000,000
c)
300,000,000
d)
3,000,000,000
- As compared to coal, oil shale of good
quality has about ___ as much energy content per ton of excavated
material.
a)
one-eighth
b)
ten
times
c)
one-hundredth
d)
one-half
e)
twice
- The estimated total minable coal in
the United States is about
a)
0.5×109
tons
b)
1.5×1012
tons
c)
0.5×1012
tons
d)
250×109
tons
- The United States is currently
importing about ___ barrels of oil each year at a cost of roughly 45
dollars per barrel.
a)
1×103
b)
1×106
c)
3×109
d)
4×106
e)
6×109
f)
6×106
g)
9×109
h)
9×106
- Natural gas consists mostly of ___,
and to some extent ___.
a)
propane,
ethane
b)
butane,
ethane
c)
propane,
methane
d)
methane,
ethane
- The United States is using liquid
petroleum at the rate of about
a)
6×109
gal/day
b)
6×109
bbl/day
c)
6×109
gal/year
d)
6×109
bbl/year
- The oil that we burn in our cars today
represents solar energy that was captured in organic molecules about ___
years ago.
a)
200,000
b)
2,000,000
c)
200,000,000
d)
2,000,000,000
- At our present rate of use, the
estimated total remaining recoverable petroleum of the United States would
supply our needs for about ___ years.
a)
20
b)
8
c)
36
d)
172
- The average percentage of the total
petroleum left in the ground after primary and secondary recovery has been
accomplished is about
a)
30%
b)
20%
c)
10%
d)
5%
e)
70%
f)
90%
g)
50%
h)
0%