Intro Quiz: Non-renewable energy resources

Video: Non-renewable energy resources

﻿Hey scientists, my name is Mrs. Evans and I'm so excited that you are joining me in learning some physics. Our topic is energy and our lesson title is non renewable energy resources. Before we get started, make sure you're all ready to learn. Move away from any distractions and make sure you have a pen and paper ready for this lesson. All ready? Great. Then let's get energised. You are going to learn so much this lesson. Together we are going to; define nonrenewable energy resources describe how fossil fuels are formed, explain how electricity is generated and evaluate the use of fossil fuels. So our first question is, what are non renewable energy resources? Well, before I answer this question, let me show you some photos. The bottom photo is of a Bunsen burner for my science lab at school. The other two photos were taken in my garden when we had a barbecue and a fire pit. In all the photos, there are flames or fire. A fuel is being burned and energy is being transferred. But what fuels are present here? Well, the Bunsen burner and the barbeque both use gas or natural gas as their fuel and the fire pit used coal as its fuel. Both of these fuels are examples of nonrenewable energy resources, and they're actually four nonrenewable energy resources, coal, oil, sometimes called crude oil, gas, sometimes go natural gas and nuclear. The first three of those four are fossil fuels, and we're going to learn more about those later in this lesson. The last one, nuclear, is not a fossil fuel. In fact, nuclear energy is when electricity is generated by a process called nuclear fission, using elements such as uranium and plutonium. It's a fascinating process but unfortunately we don't have time for this lesson, but I would recommend looking it up for yourself. However, the downside of using nuclear energy is that radioactive materials are used and have to be disposed of safely after for a very long time. Now, there are a few key things you need to know about non renewable energy resources. First off, you need to be able to name the different types. That's coal oil, gas and nuclear. Next, you need to know what non renewable means. Non-renewable means we are using up these fuels quicker than they can be replaced. Also non-renewable energy resources are finite, this is the opposite of infinite. Finite means there's a limited amount. So eventually they will run out and then we won't be able to use them anymore. Let's do a quick quiz on what we've learned so far. Question one, how many different types of fossil fuels are there. Pause to think. Well done, three, there are four different types of nonrenewable energy resource but only three of those are fossil fuels. Next, which of these is not a fossil fuel? Pause to think. Well done, nuclear. what's word does this statement define? You used quicker than they can be replaced? Pause to think. Well done, that's nonrenewable. And what word does this statement define? There's a limited amount. Pause to think. Well done, finance. Time for independent progress. Here are five questions that I would like you to write out and then answer as best you can. Pause the video so you have time to do this and then when you're ready, restart me so you can check your answers, good luck. Welcome back, well done for doing those five questions. Here are the answers on the screen. Please pause the video again so you can check your work and make any changes you need to. Check it? Great. Let's carry on. So I've told you that there are three fossil fuels coal, oil and gas but how are they formed? Well, it's actually an amazing process. Coal is formed from ancient dead plants and oil and gas are form from ancient dead animals such as fish. These have been formed over millions and millions of years. It takes a very, very long time for fossil fuels to form. This is why they are non-renewable because we are using them at a quicker rate than they can be replaced. It also takes a lot of heat and pressure to form fossil fuels. And they're called fossil fuels because they are from the fossils of dead plants and dead animals. Let's have a look at the process, I'm going to take you through some diagrams to explain it on a very simplified version. Imagine the sea millions of years ago, there were fishes and other animals living in it. We're just going to focus on a fish because it's easy for me to draw. That fish is just happily swimming alone in the sea millions of years ago. And then because the natural life processes that fish will die. When that fish dies, it then sinks to the bottom of the sea floor and it will rest there. Then over time that dead fish will be covered in mud and sand and rock. This will put pressure on the fish and compress it and break it down. The fish will also be heated due to the heat of the sun at the centre of the earth. Over time that fish will change and it will form oil and also gas. Now that oil is trapped under rocks under the sea, and we need to get it out. So we make something called an oil rig and we drill down all the way through the water, down through the rock, to under the sea bed with a really, really, really long tube. And then we can suck up the oil, put it into containers and then use it as a fuel. Oil is used as a fuel for heating, generating electricity and also it can be used as a reactant to form other materials such as plastics. But again, we won't focus on that today. We've gone through the process and here are all the images I used. Now, as an independent practise, I would like you to put these images in the correct order. I've given each image a letter, so if you don't have the downloadable resource and you don't want to draw them out, then you can just write the letters in order. But if you would like to draw them out, then go for it. Pause the video so you can do this and then restart it when you're ready to check your work, good luck. Welcome back, how did you do? Did you draw out the little fishes? Great if you did. Now, here's some in the correct order. Go through and check your work. Did you get them all right. Great job, well done. Now it's really important that you can also describe what each picture is showing. So another independent practise, please can you write one sentence describing what each picture is showing? It doesn't need to be in too much detail, but try and use the best keywords and have the best sentence structure you can. Let me give you an example, for picture one you could write, millions of years ago, animals such as fish in the sea. Nice and short and simple. Now, you need to go make descriptions for the other pictures. So pause me again so you can do this. And then when you're ready, restart me so you can check your work, good luck. Welcome back, how did you get on? Well done for writing descriptions for all the pictures. Now on the screen, you can see my descriptions, go through and compare them against yours. Don't worry if the wording is slightly different, as long as the science and meaning of the same, then it's okay. Check your work for me now. Checks it? Great. Let's carry on. So we've learned that dead animals and plants from millions of years ago go through a process to form fossil fuels. But how do we get those fossil fuels to generate electricity? Well, let me show you. Have a look at this diagram, this is a diagram of a coal power plant. So we're going to focus on coal for now, but oil and gas ones work in a very similar way. So first off you need to get your coal and bring it into your power plant, just like this. And you also need some water so power plants are often near to rivers or the sea or reservoir or have long pipes so that they can get water into them. Now that coal is put inside a boiler or a furnace, and it's set on fire and heated up to very, very, very high temperatures. As the coal burns it transfers energy to the water in the pipes above it. And as energy is transferred to the water, the water heats up and gets hotter and hotter and hotter. Eventually when the water reaches its boiling point, which is a hundred degrees Celsius, it turns into steam. That steam is then pushed along a very, very narrow pipe. Narrow means a very small diameter of the pipe, not a wide pipe, a narrow pipe. This puts the steam under a lot of pressure and that steam goes through into a turbine. Now a turbine has blades in it like a fan. So when steam comes through the narrow pipe into the turbine, this causes the blaze to spin around and around and around. The turbine is connected to a generator and the turbine spinning causes the generator to spin as well. The generates a spinning, produces electricity, and this electricity goes off to the national grid, and then the national grid along transmission lines to our houses to power all our different appliances. So now you know, how we go from coal or any other of the fossil fuels to generating electricity. But let's think about the energy transfers that are occurring. First off, you start with your fuel and fuel like coal oil or gas are all examples of chemical energy stored. When this burns, it transfers energy to the water on the steam, the water on the steam is very hot. So it transfers energy into the thermal store of the water or the steam. Then that steam goes along that narrow pipe and it causes the blades of the turbine to spin. If the turbine is spinning, it is moving. Do you remember what energy store is in something that's moving? Kinetic, well done. And then the turbine is connected to a generator and the generator also spins. So this is transferred to the kinetic store of the generator, and then eventually electricity is generated. And this goes off to the national grid which then links up to all our houses and homes. So you can see that many energy transfers occur along this process. Let's do a quick quiz on what I've taught you so far. Which entity store is found in fossil fuels? Pause to think. Well done, chemical. What does the energy from the fossil fuel mainly transfer to? Pause to think. Well done, the water. When the water is in the boiler, which energy store of the water increases? Pause to think. Well done, the thermo store. What does the water turn into when it's heated? Pause to think. Well done, the steam. In fact, it goes through a change of state from a liquid water to a gas steam. Where does the steam go via a narrow tube? Do you remember? Well done, the turbine. And when the blade spin around of the turbine, what energy store of the turbine increases? Pause to think? Well done, kinetic. Let's summarise all I've just told you in an independent practise. So here is a long description of everything that goes on in a coal power plant. Just like I showed you in that picture before. However, you can see this, some of the words are missing where there's a question mark. So what I would like you to do is write out this description and fill in all the missing gaps. Now, if you feel like you could get on with this straightaway, that's great, please pause the video and get started. But if you'd like it, little bit of extra support, just hold onto the video for a couple more minutes and I'm going to put up a support slide. On the support side is a list of words that go into those gaps. So you've just got to figure out which words go where, and then once you've done the task, restart me so you can check your work, good luck. Welcome back, well done for that all that long writing. That was a great piece of extended writing, good job. Now go through and check that you got all the same words as me. Checked it? Great. Let's move on to the last part of our lesson. So now we know what non renewable energy resources are and we know how they formed, and we know how to generate electricity for them. But is it good to use fossil fuels? Is it good to use nonrenewable energy resources? What I want us to do now is evaluate the use of them. If you see the word evaluate in an exam, that means you need to give the good stuff and the bad stuff, you need to explain the advantages and the disadvantages. So let's have a look. There are lots of advantages of using fossil fuels. Firstly, we've been using them for a long time, so we know how to use them, we have a lot of infrastructure set up for using them, we already have lots of these fossil fuel power plants. And they're very well established in our society. Also, they're very reliable. We can use them any time, day or night, any weather, for example. Additionally, they're very energy dense. So even if we burn a very small amount of coal, a lot of energy can be transferred, and this is a really good thing. And finally, they're very easy to control. So for example, let's say suddenly it's a really cold day and everybody in the country turns on their radiators and turns on all their electric heaters and needs lots of electricity to warm up their houses. Well, it's simple, we just need to burn more coal. And we can respond very quickly when the demand increases. So these are some of the advantages of fossil fuels. However, there are also lots of disadvantages. Here are some of the disadvantages. Well first off, fossil fuels are nonrenewable energy resources. So this means they're being used quicker than they're being replaced. Also they're finites, which means eventually they'll run out and they might even run out in your, and my lifetime in certain parts of the country or certain parts of the world. There's some other issues too, though, burning fossil fuels is quite damaging for the environment. When we burn them, a gas called carbon dioxide is released. Carbon dioxide is counted as a greenhouse gas. We won't go into the details now, but it contributes to global warming, which is having huge effects on our planet, right at this very moment. Also, when you burn some fossil fuels, particularly coal sulphur dioxide is released, which is another harmful gas. And this contributes to acid rain, which has big effects on different animals, ecosystems and habitats. There are some other issues too, putting these big oil rigs in the sea are not very pretty. And they can also affect the habitats of different marine life, such as fish. And if there's other oil spills and oil goes into the sea, which has happened before when oil boats have collapsed and being capsized, then oil can be released everywhere. And this, again, really negatively affects marine life. You can see that a picture of that bird dead from living in all that oil. And coal mines themselves and not great either. Again, they can damage habitats and then not very safe for the people living around there nor the animals. So there are lots of disadvantages of using fossil fuels. There are some advantages and some disadvantages. It's not so simple to just say, they're good or they're bad. You have to say both sides of the argument. So why don't you try doing that now in this independent practise. Write a to the table and evaluate the use of fossil fuels. See how many advantages you can write and how many disadvantages you can write. Pause the video to do this, and then when you're ready, restart me so you can check your work, good luck. Welcome back, well done for evaluating the use of fossil fuels. Go through now and check if you got the same points as me, and if there's any points you missed out or you put on the wrong side, make sure you just change it or add to it now. Major alterations, fantastic, well done. So we've come to the end of this lesson, great job. Now, you can define non-renewable energy resources, describe how fossil fuels are formed, explain how electricity is generated and evaluate the use of fossil fuels. Well done, you've done so much learning. Thank you for joining me in learning about energy and in particular nonrenewable energy resources and fossil fuels today. Please now go and complete the exit quiz to consolidate your learning. And then I would love it if you join me again for next lesson, where we're going to learn about renewable energy resources, goodbye scientists.

Worksheet: Non-renewable energy resources

Exit Quiz: Non-renewable energy resources

Completed: Non-renewable energy resources

This lesson describes how fossil fuels are formed and the advantages and disadvantages of using these non-renewable energy resources

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Non-renewable energy resources

Introductory Quiz

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