Course Documents -> Week 6 -> Midterm Exam
On Thursday February 14
Questions will be short answer; some calculation questions like those done on the homework and in clas
Example kinds of questions/topics.
- Review Ohms law
- Review energy history of Washington state.
- Review the energy independence and security act
of 2007
- Review hydro power yields
- Review the qualitative history of the US dependence on
Foreign Oil over the time period 1950 until now.
Some "sample" questions relating to the other material:
- Discuss the good points as well as some of the shortcomings of the Energy Independence and Security
- Explain how a basic electrical generator works.
- Explain why hydroelectric power historically had the
lowest price to the consumer
- Critically discuss the comparative relative advantages and disadvantages of Wind vs Solar Energy as a production line renewable energy source.
- Suppose we placed one 3.6 MegaWatt wind turbine every 1/10 of a mile off shore the Pacific Coast from Northern Washington to Southern California? Approximately how much average power would be generated by such a system and how does that compare to the total power consumption used in this region (e.g. Washington, Oregon and California)
- What is the 84 Million barrel Problem?
- Describe how a solar concentrator system works and what some of its limitations might be?
- Explain how levelized costs are determined.
- Explain why wind produced electricity is projected to have the lowest levelized cost of any renewable energy technology.
- Suppose some sunny location has 1 KW per square meter of incident sunlight on it and you want to solve the 100,000 MW near term energy problem with PV arrays. How many square kilometers of PV array would you need? Make sure you properly account for efficiency.
- Explain why the tremendous wind energy potential in Western North Dakota remains untapped.
- Describe how a Solar Thermal Electric facility works and is able to deliver electricity 24 hours a day. What are the physical limits to this kind of facility?
- Explain why transmission lines carry with them such high voltages?
- You have just purchased your whizbang new age healing device. This device generates designer ions that immediately reduce of stress. You really know nothing about this device other than a label on it which says "Plug me in - I require 15 amps of current". Over the course of 24 hours, how many total KWHs of energy has this device used?
- Explain why energy storage is a critical component of renewable energy technologies
- List or describe some of the factors that you believe render the US incapable of long term infrastructure planning.
- Explain why the environmental movement is considered
as mostly reactionary in nature?
- Explain the parallel between the "energy dilemma" in the 1930s and our current situation
- What do you think it would take to catalyze Joe Six pack into using a different set of values for decision making?