PDS APES 8th Period 2009-10

Who wants to be destroyed by vicious renewable energy? Not me! So here’s what we discussed in class about the other side…NONrenewable energy.

There are four types of nonrenewable energy: Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, and Nuclear Energy. We only want to focus on the fossil fuels, which excludes Nuclear Energy.

First, lets define fossil fuels: ancient organic matter (usually plants and animals) formed by decomposition over millions of years.

A cool 85% of US energy is nonrenewable fossil fuels, and the breakdown of that is

• 23% Coal
• 39% Oil
• 23% Natural Gas

There are six categories we compared:

1. Composition
2. Top 3 Reserves
3. Primary Uses
4. Advantages
5. Disadvantages
6. Projected to Last

COAL

1. Composition: Coal is a Solid, and it is formed by anaerobic decomposition of swamps that “fold” into the earth by the shifting of tectonic plates. It is almost always found on land–you wont find any in the ocean. Every living organism is made up of Carbon, and since coal is made by the decomposition of organisms… coal is also mostly Carbon. There is also Sulfur in coal.
2. Top 3 Reserves: 1. USA (27%) 2. Russia (17%) 3. China (12%)
3. Primary Uses: Electricity and Steel
4. Advantages: Ample Supply (225-900), High Net Energy Yield, Low Cost, Developed Tech
5. Disadvantages: Land Disturbance, Air Pollution, Environmental Cost not included in market price, Gov’t Subsidies, CO2 Emissions
6. Projection: 200-900 years

OIL

1. Composition:  Liquid (aka Crude Oil). The stuff we pull out of the ground is nowhere near what you put in your cars. It is a very impure substance, mixed with hundreds of HydroCarbons. A big difference between coal and oil is HOW its formed. While coal is formed under the stress of hyper-compression from tectonic plates over land, oil is formed in the ocean. A
2. Top 3 Reserves: Saudi Arabia (25%), Canada*** (15%), Iran (10%)—- ***Most of Canada’s oil is found in an unconventional form. As in, its locked up in Oil Shales, or rocks with oil trapped in them. This makes it very difficult to extract the oil… so it takes a lot of energy to extract, and therefore there is a low Net Energy Gain.
3. Primary Use: Transportation. Minor Uses: Plastics & Asphalt
4. Advantages: Ample Supply for 42-93 years, Low Cost, High Net energy yield, low land use, Developed Tech, Efficient distribution.
5. Disadvantages Need to find substitute, large gov’t subsidies, Environmental costs,  Artificially Low Costs, Release CO2
6. Projected to Last: 42-93

NATURAL GAS

1. Composition: Gas. Mixture 50-90% methane…some Butane (like in lighters) and Propane in there as well. Note that Gasoline is NOT a natural gas.
2. Top 3 Reserves: Russia (27), Iran (15), Qatar (14)
3. Primary Uses: Heating Space, Cooking
4. Advantages: Cleanest, Ample Supplies (Although we only have 3% of the world’s reserves), low land use
5. Disadvantages:Nonrenewable Resource, Releases CO2, Gov’t Subsidies
6. Projected to last: 62-125 years

Billion vs Million – Watch out for this!

Here are some important numbers that should help give things context

4.5 Billion- How long Earth has been around

3.7 Billion- How long life (bacteria) has been around

6.7 Billion- Approx Earth’s human population

20%- Approx percentage of people living in DEVELOPED countries

2.1- Replacement Fertility Rate in most DEVELOPED countries

1.2%- World’s Annual Growth Rate

0- The number of countries in stage ONE of the demographic transition

99%- of all species that have ever existed  are extinct

100%- The difference between 1% and 2%. Be careful!

1000- The number out of which CBR and CDR are calculated

Doubled- The world population since 1968 (Mr. W’s bday!)

5- The number of MASS EXTINCTIONS shown in the geological record

2%—>50%- The  increase in global urban population between 1850-2007

Please contribute more if you think of them!

I’m reviewing my case studies for population but there is nothing here about Japan, and I know I’ve heard Mr. W mention Japan enough times to scare me into thinking its going to be on the exam.
From what I understand Japan’s age structure is that there are more old folk now right? Can anyone elaborate what the big deal about Japan’s situation is?

I have a question about stage 4. One thong that hasn’t made sense to me is how I keep hearing about the United states being the “most industrialized country” yet, as we learned in class, it is not even in stage 4. Could someone clarify why this is?

While I was reading this article I was a little confused about something. We read the article like the bass and all the other fish that the snakeheads would beat using the competitive exclusion principle. Why cant the bass and other native fish just find their realized niche? Is it even relevant here?

Setting the Stage

On Wednesday we started off class setting the stage for the unit through a timeline. The beginning of the timeline was 4.5 billion years ago, when Earth forms, and a mark at 3.7 billion years ago, when the first fossils (of Cyanobacteria) are dated. The period between 4.5 and 3.7 bya is know as “the origins of life” which is what we had an entire unit on in Biology. This is referred to as chemical evolution since there were no forms of life. What we will be focusing on in Chapter 4 is the time period from 3.7 bya to the present where there was biological evolution. This is where Darwin’s Theory comes into play.

How We Gain Species

Darwin’s theory, as you probably know, is all about the process of evolution. His theory has developed two different kinds of evolution: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution is change within a species, and is normally associated with natural selection.  There are 4 basic part of Microevolution and to explain it we watched a video that used hummingbird’s beak length as an example.

1) Genetic Variation: This means that within the hummingbirds gene pool, there are different alleles that lead to various phenotypes.  This way, there is more than one size beak within the hummingbird species to give evolution “options” on which will be continued and which will be eliminated.

2)Overproduction of Offspring: In a dangerous, constant struggle for limited resources, sometimes all of the offspring don’t survive, so to cope with this some species produce massive amounts of young so enough will make it to keep the species going.

3)Struggle For Existence: This is the “survival of the fittest” part that most everyone understand.  The most advantageous traits will be favored in the gene pool and passed on through generations over time.

4)Different Rates of Survival & Reproduction: Certain traits are more favorable than others, and the rates of survival, and therefore the rates of reproduction among those who have more advantageous traits is higher.

So that’s the microevolution process. Macroevolution is simply the change between species, and is associated with speciation, or the process by which new species evolve. On a larger scale, over enough time, speciation occurs when a species has evolved so much it has developed into two distinct species.  New species can be established only when two species can not reproduce fertile offspring.

One last thing to note that a lot of people apparently mistake:

Individuals cannot evolve; populations evolve.
We also covered the different kinds of natural selection:

Directional Natural Selection: changing environmetan conditions select organisms with traits the “shift” the average in one direction.  For example, if we’re talking about snail colors, and the different traits are black to white (with various grays in between), then maybe dark snails are favored and the species as a whole becomes populated with more darker than lighter colored snails.

Stabilizing Natural Selection: The “extremes” of the species traits, in this case black and white, are eliminated and the average snail color becomes more uniform.

Diversifying Natural Selection: The middle (gray) snails die out, and there are extremes left; more black or white snails.

Pictures:

http://evoled.dbs.umt.edu/lessons/causes.htm

64bitarmy.com

Hi guys, Im confused about why deserts are found on the tropic latitudes and not the actual equator… I think it has something to do with the heating and cooling of the air? I thought the equator got the most direct sunlight, so shouldnt all the water be evaporating away more quickly? Instead there are tropical rainforests on the equator… Im hoping someone can explain how temperature/air/water make this happen.

I just have a quick question kind of like the one I asked in class today. I’ll use our feat practice response as an example, the one about moths population and how it’s affected acorn production.
Would I have been able to just OBSERVE the moth production once during the acorn autumnal season where there are a lot of acorns and then observe it again during the acorn season?
Im not specifically changing something my self, and I’m not sure if the two obaerations could be considered a controlled experiment.

Thanks!

This is a “real time” simulation of CO2 emissions, birth & death rates by country.

www.BreathingEarth.net

Let it run for a few minutes… it’s sort of interesting.  But I really suggest turning off the volume because there is a really annoying noise it makes. Also, you can scroll your mouse over a country you can see specific details.

PS Check out the birth rate in India!

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Here is the description from their site

Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the CO2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the CO2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high.