SUSTAINABLE ENERGY –
WITHOUT THE HOT AIR
Notes of Reading
Songyue Wang
, CHAPTER 1 - MOTIVATIONS
Numbers are better than adjectives.
Reasons for establishing energy policies:
1. To use resources (like petrol) for alternative uses; 批注 [SW1]: Like producing plastics.
2. To ensure energy security;
3. To fix the climate change.
The beginning of rapid increase of warehouse gas: 1769 (Watt improved the steam engine, which made
it easier to bump water out of coal mining, increased productivity of coal mining and amount of coal
demanded by industries).
Ocean and biosphere also emit a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere. However, the natural flow from and into
the atmosphere cancel each other out.
Why CO2 causes warm house effect: it absorbs infrared radiation (heat) heading out of the earth and
reemits it in random directions.
Amount of greenhouse gases is presented in term of amount of CO2 which have the same effect over a
period of 100 years. The unit is tCO2e or GtCO2e.
Debates about energy policy are often confusing and emotional because people mix together factural
assertions (can be tested whether they are true or false) and ethical assertions.
Doubling CO2 concentrations would have a warming effect equivalent to increasing the intensity of the
sun by 4 (power of heating increased, unit: W/m2) / 238 (original average power absorbed per unit of
area on the surface of the earth) = 1.7%.
CHAPTER 2 - THE BALANCE SHEET
The prefix of ‘exa’ represents the factor of 1018 (1 exajoules equals to 1018 joules).
‘BTU’ represents ‘British Thermal Unit’, 1 BTU is approximately 1055 joules.
Entropy is the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing
useful work (electricity has low entropy while hot air and water have high entropies).
Electrical energy can also be converted to chemical energy (in the future we might use electricity to
make liquid fuels).
CHAPTER 3 - CARS
WITHOUT THE HOT AIR
Notes of Reading
Songyue Wang
, CHAPTER 1 - MOTIVATIONS
Numbers are better than adjectives.
Reasons for establishing energy policies:
1. To use resources (like petrol) for alternative uses; 批注 [SW1]: Like producing plastics.
2. To ensure energy security;
3. To fix the climate change.
The beginning of rapid increase of warehouse gas: 1769 (Watt improved the steam engine, which made
it easier to bump water out of coal mining, increased productivity of coal mining and amount of coal
demanded by industries).
Ocean and biosphere also emit a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere. However, the natural flow from and into
the atmosphere cancel each other out.
Why CO2 causes warm house effect: it absorbs infrared radiation (heat) heading out of the earth and
reemits it in random directions.
Amount of greenhouse gases is presented in term of amount of CO2 which have the same effect over a
period of 100 years. The unit is tCO2e or GtCO2e.
Debates about energy policy are often confusing and emotional because people mix together factural
assertions (can be tested whether they are true or false) and ethical assertions.
Doubling CO2 concentrations would have a warming effect equivalent to increasing the intensity of the
sun by 4 (power of heating increased, unit: W/m2) / 238 (original average power absorbed per unit of
area on the surface of the earth) = 1.7%.
CHAPTER 2 - THE BALANCE SHEET
The prefix of ‘exa’ represents the factor of 1018 (1 exajoules equals to 1018 joules).
‘BTU’ represents ‘British Thermal Unit’, 1 BTU is approximately 1055 joules.
Entropy is the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing
useful work (electricity has low entropy while hot air and water have high entropies).
Electrical energy can also be converted to chemical energy (in the future we might use electricity to
make liquid fuels).
CHAPTER 3 - CARS
