IB ESS TOPIC 7, Exam Questions
section and answers, 100% accurate,
Renewable - ✔✔-Natural resources that have a sustainable yield or harvest equal to or less than their
natural productivity
Non-Renewable - ✔✔-natur
...
IB ESS TOPIC 7, Exam Questions
section and answers, 100% accurate,
Renewable - ✔✔-Natural resources that have a sustainable yield or harvest equal to or less than their
natural productivity
Non-Renewable - ✔✔-natural resources that cannot be replenished within a timescale of the same
order as that at which they are taken from the environment and used (e.g. fossil fuels)
Fossil fuels - ✔✔-non-renewable resources including oil, coal, natural gas and shale gas
Oil - ✔✔-Advantages
- cheap, versatile raw material
- easy to transport
- found in geological structures
- reserves could last for another 40 years with present rates of C/P
Disadvantages
- oil spills
- damages coastlines, fish stocks and sea communities
- finite resource, non-renewable
- burning contributes to global warming through release of CO2
Hydroelectric Power - ✔✔-Advantages:
- renewable, harnesses fast-flowing water with a sufficient volume
- clean: does not emit greenhouse gases
- stations are often associated with aluminium smelters to use up excess energy
Disadvantages:
- Plants/stations expensive to build
- few places have a sufficient water
- plants must run at full capacity to make money
- may affect routes of migratory fish and mammals
- increased evaporation behind the dam and deposition of silt
- diseases: schistosomiasis can be spread by the stagnant water
- fish yields downstream can be adversely affected by the trapping of sediments behind the dam
Solar Power - ✔✔-Advantages:
- no finite resources are involved
- less environmental damage caused
- no atmospheric pollution given off
- energy from sun is clean, renewable, so abundant that amount of energy received by Earth in 30 mins
from sun = all power used by humans in 1 year
- suitable for small-scale and large-scale production
Disadvantages:
- affected by clouds, seasons, day length, cannot be guaranteed to work in all locations
- high costs make it difficult for industry to achieve its full potential
- currently does not make a significant contribution to energy efficiency
- each unit of electricity generated costs between 4 and 10 times as much as that derived from fossil
fuels
Coal - ✔✔-Advantages:
- responsible for development of western industrial growth
- thick, level, continuous seams are most competitive and use machinery
- used for production of electricity in the thermal power stations and the smelting industry (e.g. iron and
steel)
Disadvantages:
- dirty, bulky, costly and difficult to transport
- inefficiencies in early forms of transport and machinery meant industries had to be located on
coalfields
- open-cast mining causes serious visual and noise pollution
- burning coal contributes to acid rain, global warming "
Energy Security - ✔✔-- adequate, affordable and reliable supply of energy
- poverty affects this
- lack of energy can impact negatively on social and economic development, may lead to conflict
Energy Conservation - ✔✔-- efforts to reduce energy consumption
- e.g. wearing extra clothing or using a blanket rather than a heater is conserving
- e.g. double or triple glazing windows, cavity wall and loft insulation, switching off lights
Energy Efficiency - ✔✔-- attempts to improve products and services so that less energy is required to
function
- e.g. fluorescent lights and LED lights reduce amount of energy needed to provide light for an area
- many modern appliances (fridges, washing machines) require less energy compared with older models
Atmospheric Circulatory Systems - ✔✔-- winds from low altitudes tend to be warm, winds from high
altitudes are cold
- winds blowing over oceans are moist whereas winds blowing over land are dry
- winds can have seasonal influences e.g. Asian monsoon
greenhouse gases - ✔✔-atmospheric gases that absorb infrared radiation, causing world temperatures
to rise
Impacts of climate change - ✔✔-1. biomes shifting
2. change in location of crop-growing areas
3. changed weather patterns
4. coastal inundation (due to thermal expansion of oceans from melting ice caps)
5. human health (spread of tropical diseases)
Forms of GHGs - ✔✔-water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs, ozone and nitrogen oxides
CO2 sources - ✔✔-respiration, breakdown of organic matter, volcanic vents, burning fossil fuels +
organic materials, and forest fires
Methane sources - ✔✔-wetlands, bogs, stagnant water bodies, rice paddies tundra soils, breakdown of
organic material, volcanic vents, livestock, landfill sites, m
[Show More]