Notes Nonrenewable Resources and Energy web

Nonrenewable Resources &

Energy Notes

GEOLOGIC PROCESSES

 The earth is constantly changing as a result

of processes taking place on and below its surface

 The earth’s interior consists of:

 Core: innermost zone with solid inner core

and molten outer core that is extremely hot

 _{Composed mainly of Fe}

 Mantle: solid rock with a rigid outer part

 _{Melted pliable rock}

 Composed mainly of Si, Mg, and Fe

 Crust: Outermost zone which underlies the

continents

 _{Composed mainly of O}

 Tectonic plates: huge rigid plates that are

moved with convection cells or currents by floating on magma or molten rock

 Plate tectonics is the theory explaining the movement of the plates and the processes that occur at their boundaries

 _{The extremely slow movements of these plates cause}

them to:

 _{Grind into one another at convergent plate boundaries}

 _{At most convergent plate boundaries, the oceanic lithosphere is}

carried downward under the island or continent. Earthquakes are common

here. It also forms an ocean ridge or a mountain range.

 _{Continental plates often made of granite}

which is less dense than oceanic plates (made of basalt)

 _{Move apart at divergent plate boundaries}  Slide past at transform plate boundaries

 _{Plates slide next or past each other in}

opposite directions along a fracture.

Volcanic island arc

Craton Craton Trench

L ar ge

Erosion Transportation Weathering Deposition Igneous rock Granite, pumice, basalt Sedimentary rock Sandstone, limestone Heat, pressure Cooling Heat, pressure,

stress _{(molten rock)}Magma

Melting Metamorphic rock Slate, marble, gneiss, quartzite

Rock Cycle

the interaction of

processes that change

rocks from one type to

Rock Classification: Igneous

 Forms the bulk of the earth’s crust

 Main source of many non-fuel mineral

resources

 Two types of Igneous Rock:

 Intrusive – formed from the

solidification of magma below ground

 Extrusive – formed from the

solidification of lava above ground

 Examples: Granite, Pumice, Basalt,

 Most form when rocks are

weathered and eroded into small pieces, transported, and deposited in a body of surface water

 ??Petrified wood and

opalized wood??

 Clastic Sedimentary –

pieces of mechanical

weathering debris become cemented together by

minerals like calcite (CaCO₃)

 Pieces range in size from

large rocks in conglomerates to a fine grain in shale

Rock Classification:

Sedimentary

 Nonclastic Sedimentary

–

 Chemical Sedimentary

– form when dissolved materials precipitate from solution

 Organic or Biochemical

Sedimentary – form

from the accumulation of plant or animal

debris (EX: peat, coal)

Rock Classification:

Sedimentary

 Occurs when preexisting rock is subjected to high

temperatures, high pressures, and/or chemically active fluids

 Usually occurs deep within the earth

 EX: Sandstone _ Quartzite; Shale _ Slate;

Limestone  Marble

 Major types of metamorphism:

 Contact (thermal) metamorphism

 Occurs next to bodies of hot igneous rock

 _{Low-grade metamorphism (refers to heat and pressure}

required)

 Regional metamorphism

 During mountain formation, large quantities of rock are

subject to intense stress & heat

 _{Produces the most common metamorphic rock}  _{High-grade metamorphism (T > 320°C or 608°F)}

 Dynamic metamorphism

 _{Earth movement crushes & breaks rocks along a fault forming}

mylonites

 _{Rocks vary in texture (from brittle to ductile)}

Nonrenewable Resources

 Things human use that have a limited supply  Cannot be regrown or replenished by man

 EX: We have a 200 year supply of coal in the

U.S.

 Knowing this helps people make decisions in

resource use

 Problem:

 These are only predictions and may not be

accurate

Sustainability: A prediction of

how long a specific resource

will last?

 Central – diamonds (Arkansas), bituminous

coal

 West – bituminous and subbituminous coal,

gold, silver, copper

 East – anthracite coal, bituminous coal  South – some gold (SC), bituminous coal

 North – bituminous coal, some gold (SD, WI)  Central – limestone, tin, clay, lead, garnets,

freshwater pearls, amethysts, calcium carbonate

 West – talc, mercury, silver, petroleum, sulfur  East – lignite coal, petroleum

 South – lignite coal, petroleum, uranium,

limestone

 North – helium, uranium, petroleum,

bituminous coal

Resources in the United

States

Restoration as a Solution

 Completed by recycling resources

 EX: aluminum, glass, tin, steel, plastics, etc.

 Problems:

 _{Recycling a resource often costs more than using}

the raw material

 _{We don’t have the technology to recycle everything}

 Using less of a resource or reusing a resource

 EX: refilling plastic laundry jugs, reusing plastic

bags, etc.

 Problem:

 This requires a change in our lifestyle which some

people will resist

Environmental Effects of Using

Mineral Resources

The extraction, processing, and use of mineral resources has a large environmental impact.

Costs of Harvesting

Nonrenewable Resources

 Ownership Costs

 Equipment & Labor

 Safety (insurance) & Taxes

 _{Environmental costs (reclamation, pollution}

control, air monitors, water treatment, etc.)

 _{Processing the resource}

 Transporting the resource

 Marginal Costs

 Finding new sources of the resource

 Researching new ways to harvest it

Most extern

al costs are no

t considered.

 Direct

 Money received for resources

 Provides many jobs

 Indirect

 _{Land can be reclaimed back to its original}

condition and sold for profit

 Rock layer and topsoil (overburden) is returned  _{Area is fertilized and planted}

 Benefits: restores land to a good condition  _{Costs: expensive, time-consuming}

Benefits of Harvesting

Methods of Removing Minerals

 Methods vary widely in their costs, safety factors,

and levels of environmental harm

 A variety of methods are used based on mineral

depth

 Surface Mining: shallow deposits are removed

 _{Resource is <200 ft. from the surface}  Topsoil is removed (and saved)

 _{Explosives break up the rocks and remove the resource}  _{Reclamation follows}

 _{Benefits: cheap, easy, efficient}

 _{Costs: tears up the land (temporarily), byproducts produce}

an acid that can accumulate in rivers and lakes

 Subsurface (or Underground) Mining: deep

deposits are removed

 Digging a shaft down to the resource

 _{Using machinery (and people) to tear off and remove the}

resource

 _{Benefits: can get to resources far underground}

 Costs: more expensive, more time-consuming, more

Open-pit Mining

 Machines dig holes

and remove ores, sand, gravel, and stone

 Problem:

 Toxic groundwater can

accumulate at the bottom

 Earth movers strips

away overburden and giant shovels remove mineral deposit

 Problem:

 Often leaves highly

erodible hills of

rubble called spoil

banks

Area Strip

Mining

Contour Strip

Mining

 Used on hilly or

mountainous terrain

 Problem:

 Unless the land is restored, a

wall of dirt is left in front of a highly erodible bank called a

highwall  Machinery

removes the tops of mountains to expose coal

 Problems:

 The resulting

waste rock and dirt are dumped into the streams and valleys below

Mountainto

p Removal

Surface Mining Control & Reclamation Act (1977):

Centralia, Pennsylvania

- _{landfill burned 1962 and wasn’t}

fully extinguished?

- _{mine caught on fire}

- _{1979 town received national}

attention

- _{1984 was evacuated (7-10}

residents remain)

Energy Resources:

Primary

Sources

 Definition: the original sources that are used

to make electricity or heat

 Is found in nature

 Only about 30% efficient  Benefits

 Easy to use

 Currently abundant

 Costs

 A nonrenewable resource

 Produces pollutants that contribute to acid rain

and the greenhouse effect

 Example:

 Fossil fuels like oil

 _{Supplies the most commercial energy in the world today.}

People in the U.S. use 23 barrels of petroleum per person or 6 billion barrels total each year!

 Definition: the heat and electricity that we

use for energy

 Produced from the primary resource that was

found in nature

 Production of two useful forms of energy,

such as high-temperature heat or steam and electricity, from the same fuel source

 EX: An industry using natural gas for

manufacturing and using the waste heat to produce electricity

Cogeneration

Energy Resources:

Secondary

Solutions

Sustainable Use of Nonrenewable Minerals

• Do not waste mineral resources.

• Recycle and reuse 60–80% of mineral resources. • Include the harmful environmental costs of

mining and processing minerals in the prices of items (full-cost pricing).

• Reduce subsidies for mining mineral resources. • Increase subsidies for recycling, reuse, and

finding less environmentally harmful substitutes. • Redesign manufacturing processes to use less

mineral resources and to produce less pollution and waste.

• Have the mineral-based wastes of one manufacturing process become the raw materials for other processes.

Specific Resources & Their

Uses

CLAY

 Used to make books, dishes, bricks, and

linoleum

 Formed from ancient peat bogs (swamps) that

were under pressure as they were covered

 Used for electricity, heat, steel, exports, and

industry

 May contribute to the Greenhouse Effect

 H₂SO₄ is formed from tailings that dissolve in

H₂O

 Increases the solubility of heavy metals

 Fix with bioremediation

 Produces most of atmospheric mercury

 Over 50% of all the coal is in the United States,

the former Soviet Union and China

 Coal reserves in the United States (27%), Russia

(17%), and China (13%) could last hundreds to over a thousand years

 _{In 2005, China and the U.S. accounted for 53% of the global}

coal consumption

Aluminum Toxicity

Aluminum ions are released from the soil when the soil’s pH drops below 5.4. This inhibits root development and this limits crop growth.

pH Fixes

Flooding

- _{Leads to an anaerobic state} - _{Microorganisms release}

carbonic gas

- _{When combined with water}

in such conditions, carbonates are formed thus increasing the pH

Add organic matter

- _{Increases the cation}

exchange capacity

- _{Decreases the relative}

amount of cations

Liming to neutralize the acids with:

- Limestone (CaCO₃) - _{Hydrated lime (CaOH)} - _{Quicklime (CaO)}

COAL

Coal is a solid fossil fuel that is formed in several stages from the buried remains of land plants that

Waste heat

Coal bunker Turbine _{transfers waste} Cooling tower heat to atmosphere Generator

Cooling loop

Stack Pulverizing

mill

Condenser _Filter

Boiler

Toxic ash disposal

Boil the water

To make the steam To turn the turbine To go to the

NATURAL GAS

 Consists mostly of methane (CH₄) and is

often found above reservoirs of crude oil

 _{When a natural gas-field is tapped, gasses are}

liquefied and removed as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)

 Coal beds and bubbles of methane trapped in

ice crystals deep under the arctic permafrost and beneath deep-ocean sediments are

unconventional sources of natural gas

 Russia and Iran have almost half of the

world’s reserves of conventional gas

 Global reserves should last 62-125 years

 Natural gas is a versatile and clean-burning

fuel, but…

 It releases the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide

(when burned) and methane (from leaks) into the troposphere

FRACTURING ACT: still not passed

 Banned in France, Germany, Scotland and

Bulgaria

 Precautionary principle

 http://keeptapwatersafe.org/global-bans-on-fracking

/

 Denton TX attempted to ban fracking but then TX

banned bans

 Exempt from major laws…

 Even if it is just water being injected...

 Oklahoma had a 3000% increase in earthquakes in

the last few years

 _{From June 17-24, 2015, Oklahoma experienced 35}

earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 3.0

 _{Irving had 11 quakes in a 24-hour time period}

between Jan 7th-8th 2015

 _{US Geological Survey recorded 1 earthquake in the Dallas}

metro within 58 years before 2008

 Abundant locally

 Formed from layers of seashells and

organisms under pressure as they were covered

 Used in sidewalks, fertilizers, plastics,

carpets, etc.

 Used in car batteries

 Besides being used as money and for

jewelry, gold is used in medicine (lasers, cauterizing agents) and in electronics

(circuits in computers, etc.)

 Extracted from bauxite

 Used for pans, lamps, power lines, etc.

LIMESTONE

LEAD

GOLD

ALUMINUM

Mercury is used in gold mining because it forms alloys with other metals. Hg is combined with Au and

the Hg is evaporated.

4:09-13:09

Spray cyanide solution on a heap. Pull the gold out of the solution using zinc.

2Au(CN) + Zn  2Au + Zn(CN)₄-2



Currently well over 80% of the

phosphorus mined and applied to

crops is “lost”

 Ends up in water causing ___________________  Ends up in the soil as an insoluble compound

that plants cannot absorb



It is predicted that by

2030 we’ll reach peak

phosphorus

extraction

PHOSPHORUS

Why doe

s that

matter?



Phospholipid s

 _ATP



Microscopic

mushroom that has

a mutualistic

relationship with

plants

 Receives: access to

glucose

 Provides: access to

phosphorus

 Has extensive reach that

a plant root’s hairs do not have

 Can convert insoluble

phosphorus to a form the plant can use

OIL

 Crude oil (petroleum) is a thick liquid

containing hydrocarbons that we extract from underground deposits and separate into

products such as gasoline, heating oil and asphalt

 Only 35-50% can be economically recovered

from a deposit

 As prices rise, about 10-25% more can be

recovered from expensive secondary extraction techniques

 This lowers the net energy yield

 Saudi Arabia could supply the world with oil for

about 10 years

 The Alaska’s North Slope could meet the world

oil demand for 6 months (U.S.: 3 years)

 Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would

meet the world demand for 1-5 months (U.S.: 7-25 months)

Processing

Oil

 Refining crude oil:

 Based on boiling

points,

components are removed at

various layers in a giant

distillation column

 _{The most volatile}

components with the lowest boiling points are

removed at the top

Case Study: U.S. Oil Supplies

 The U.S. is the world’s largest oil user yet

we have less than 5% of the world’s proven oil reserves

 About 60% of U.S oil imports goes through

refineries in hurricane-prone regions of the Gulf Coast

 U.S oil production peaked in the mid

1970’s

O.P.E.C.

 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

 Composed of 12 countries

 Have 78% of the world’s proven oil reserves and

most of the world’s unproven reserves

 After global production peaks and begins a

slow decline, oil prices will rise and could

threaten the economies of countries that have not shifted to new energy alternatives

Heavy Oils from Oil Sand and Oil

Shale: Will Sticky Black Gold Save

Us?

 Heavy and tarlike oils from oil sand and oil shale

could supplement conventional oil, but there are environmental problems

 High sulfur content

 Extracting and processing produces:

 _{Toxic sludge}

 _{Uses and contaminates larges volumes of water}

 Requires large inputs of natural gas which reduces net

energy yield.

 Oil shales _

contain a solid

combustible mixture of hydrocarbons

called kerogen

 Contains 1/10th the

energy of crude oil per ton

Tar Sands (Oil Sands) in Alberta,

Canada

 A mixture of sand, clay and bitumen that can be

extracted

 Pros

 Large supply (lasting ? 20 – 200 ? years)

 _{Economically recoverable at today’s oil prices}  _{Helps to keep oil prices low}

 Less than 5% has been produced, large growth potential  _{Jobs for Native Americans}

 Cons

 Low net energy compared to other sources

 _{Large source of GHG emissions (15% more than the}

average barrel of crude oil)

 _{Large amounts of water are required (3:1 ratio)}

 Roughly 3 million gallons of toxic runoff are produced

each day creating toxic pools of water

 _{Destructive to ancestral land}

Arguments for the United States’ use of Canada’s bitumen

- _{It’ll be shipped by rail if not pipelined}

So How Long Will the Oil Party

Last?

 Estimated that oil

will last around 50-100 more years

 We have three

options:

 _{Look for more oil}

 _{Use or waste less oil}  Use something else

Katrina took away major oil

corporations ability to provide fuel for months—provoking lots of

conversations

Why so much oil

criticism yet continued production (apart from money for those

Granite

Core

Sedimentary

Bituminous

Fractional Distillation

Russia

Mycorrhizae

Oil

Shale

Limestone

Extrusiv

e

_Highwall

Energy Sources, Use, &

Improvement

Types of Energy Resources

 About three quarters of the commercial

energy we use comes from nonrenewable fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) with the remainder coming from renewable

sources

 _{Solar energy indirectly supports wind}