Questions tagged [energy]
The ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems.
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Was whaling the biggest industry in 1903?
In a podcast with Joe Rogan, Jimmy Carr made the claim that:
Whaling was the biggest industry in the world in 1903.
However, some people in the comment section dispute this, claiming that Carr meant ...
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Do the US have enough gas resources to last about 90 years?
In the 2012 State of the Union Address the then president Obama stated:
We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years
Since the speech was done more than 10 year ago, now ...
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Is Amazon powered by 85% renewable energy?
In a video on the TED YouTube channel, Chris Roe, Amazon's director of energy and sustainable operations, makes a claim that Amazon is powered by 85% renewable energy.
I suspect 85% is too optimistic ...
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Does an “average-sized” power station pay over a quarter billion pounds per day when unable to generate electricity?
Given the war in Ukraine and associated sanctions on Russia and reciprocal withholding of supply, Europe is facing a gas shortage.
The UK imports very little Russian gas, but because of the reduced ...
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Has wholesale electricity price in France increased to €1000 per MWh, up from €85 per MWh?
This broadcast ...
France to restart all nuclear reactors by winter amid energy crunch • FRANCE 24 English
... says:
The wholesale price for 2022 was €85 per MWh and the price for 2023 has gone up ...
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Did the USA increase oil imports from Russia after the Ukraine invasion?
According to Zhao Lijian of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY)
[...] Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov said, in a contrasting ...
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Do "solar panels require 10 times the minerals to deliver the same quantity of energy as a natural gas plant"?
Recently, the Washington Post published an article1 discussing Mark Jacobson's research2 positing that a strategy of 100% wind, water, and solar power can provide all the energy needs of the U.S. with ...
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Is it true that there is not enough electricity to power all vehicles in the United States if they were electric?
According to Scotty Kilmer, in his video, "The Truth About My Worsening Condition":
There is not enough electricity [currently] to charge the batteries of cars like Tesla that have lithium ...
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Nanoscale hydrogen batteries that use water-splitting technology [closed]
It was claimed in this article in 2019 that a nano-battery using water splitting technology is developed. It is described as:
The battery gains its charge by interacting with water molecules present ...
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Did researchers create a graphene device that drew "free" power from the ionic thermal motion?
A 2012 pre-print, Self-Charged Graphene Battery Harvests Electricity from Thermal Energy of the Environment claims that a graphene device was used to generate a voltage of 0.35V by capturing some of ...
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Will SpaceX's fleet of rockets triple the entire United States demand for methane/natural gas?
According to Energy Consulting Group's "SpaceX's Starship May Nearly Triple US Natural Gas Demand" page,
Our analysis indicates that a fully configured Starship launch (booster and Starship)...
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At the current rate are we going run out of fossil fuels by 2060?
British energy company Octopus Energy claims on their blog:
If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by 2060.
This ...
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Does the average carbon footprint per bitcoin transaction range from 233.4 to 363.5 kg of CO2?
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30087-X says,
According to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, Bitcoin’s energy use in 2018 translates to a carbon footprint of 19.0 to 29.6 ...
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Does the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission require weatherized pipelines and equipment (but Texas's doesn't)?
The Houston Chornicle writes:
Texas has the only American electricity grid with no rules for resiliency. Instead, the GOP majority argued that a system that pays higher prices when demand goes up ...
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Do windmills in freezing climates require power so they don't seize up?
This graphic shared on Facebook, says windmills require active heating in freezing climates when not producing electricity. Its exact text reads,
Germany's millions of solar panels are blanketed in ...
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Will renewable energy strategies generate a net increase in jobs?
In the battle against climate change we often hear that new renewable energy programs will generate a large number of new jobs. At the recent Paris Climate summit Boris Johnson said that a green ...
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Is Russia's fiscal break-even price for oil around half of Saudi Arabia's?
According to the philosopher John Gray (Why this crisis is a turning point in history):
An increasing influence on the EU will come from Russia. In the struggle with the Saudis that triggered the ...
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Does streaming a video to smartphone consume 1000W of electricity?
The German test magazine "Stiftung Warentest" tested video streaming platforms in the magazine 1/2020. As a side note they write on page 35:
Laut Studien der grünen französischen Denkfabrik "The ...
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Does streaming an album 27 times consume as much energy as manufacturing a CD?
According to an article on TheConversation:
So which is the greener option? It depends on many things, including how many times you listen to your music. If you only listen to a track a couple of ...
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Neutrino “Solar Panels”: This can't be for real, is it? [duplicate]
I'm having my students research new energy technologies. One of them came across this website:
-Neutrino energy: harnessing the power of cosmic radiation
The website promotes a deeply unlikely ...
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Can electricity be obtained from neutrino radiation, like a solar cell?
Power Technology magazine published a 2019 article *Neutrino energy: harnessing the power of cosmic radiation.
It describes a new energy technology - making solar panels, but for neutrinos instead of ...
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Is the production of nuclear power very expensive? [duplicate]
Reuters recently published the following piece:
Nuclear energy too slow, too expensive to save climate: report
Inside, it says:
The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per ...
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Do windmills take more energy to build than they could produce? [duplicate]
Saw this posted on a friend's feed on Facebook recently. Are the numbers correct, and is the final statement ("A windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was ...
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Will smart meters cost each UK household 420 GBP?
The roll out of smart meters is well on its way in the UK. In this article it is claimed that smart meters will cost each household 420 pounds. Apparently, this money will be taken from each customers ...
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Did the Falkland Islanders only have peat as fuel until the arrival of the Argentine oil companies?
I found this paragraph in the Spanish wikipedia entry about peat.
A group of Falklanders shoveling peat around the 1950s. Peat was the
only form of fuel used in the Falklands until the arrival of
...
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Does one SUV tank of ethanol "take as much grain as could feed a person for a whole year?"
From The Great Transition, (c)2014, by Lester R. Brown (preface, page xiii):
[F]illing the tank of a large SUV one time with ethanol takes as much grain as could feed a person for a whole year.
...
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Are home owners required by law to connect gas in Victoria, Australia?
The One Step Off The Grid website claims that home owners in Victoria are required to connect to the gas network. It does not give an easy way to verify this claim.
Did you know Victoria’s building ...
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Is there compelling proof against an alternative to the law of conservation of energy? [closed]
The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but changed into different forms, which I've never found entirely compelling. It's impossible to measure the energy ...
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Does the Bitcoin network consume as much energy as Denmark?
According to Ars Technica:
One estimate suggests the Bitcoin network consumes as much energy as Denmark.
There are other sources that make similar claims:
Greentech Media claim:
The Bitcoin ...
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Does one transaction on Bitcoin require 215 kWh? [closed]
This seems unbelievable:
This averages out to a shocking 215 kilowatt-hours (KWh) [sic] of juice used
by miners for each Bitcoin transaction (there are currently about
300,000 transactions per ...
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Can the US be powered by a 100 miles x 100 miles solar grid? [duplicate]
In this article Elon Musk is quoted to say that the US can be powered by a solar grid shaped as a square (in video he says "a corner of Utah or Nevada") 100 miles x 100 miles big.
“If you wanted ...
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Does one kg of rock contain more energy in the form of U-238 than one kg of petroleum? [closed]
Let's consider rock and petroleum. Which contains more energy per kilogram? Due to Einstein, we know mass is energy, and the energy contents of both are equivalent. However, let's forget this and ...
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Does nuclear power cause fewer deaths than other forms of electricity production, accidents included?
There have been several questions related to nuclear power in comparison to other forms of electricity production:
Are there fewer accidental deaths at nuclear power plants than others?
Do coal ...
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Did wind power supply less than half a percent of global energy in 2014?
From The Spectator: Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy:
Here’s a quiz; no conferring. To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the world’s energy ...
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Does Leonardo DiCaprio fly on private jets?
Does Leonardo DiCaprio fly on private jets?
Example claim: Leonardo DiCaprio flies 8,000 miles in private jet to accept ‘green award'
Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio flew an additional 8,000 miles ...
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Has Brilliant Light Power developed a new source of energy from water molecules?
Brilliant Light Power is a company that claims, on their web-site, to have:
developed a new commercially competitive, non-polluting, plasma-based primary source of massive power from the conversion ...
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Is flying the worst choice of travelling, considering the greenhouse effect and carbon-dioxide emission? [closed]
The communities I live in in Germany keep telling everybody that flying should be avoided by all circumstances, because it has a far bigger ecological footprint than any other mode of transportation. ...
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Do Duracell batteries last longer than normal batteries?
The claim is
Up to 10 times longer lasting power
(*) vs. ordinary zinc carbon batteries in high powered toys and flash cameras
(picture from Amazon)
Do Duracell batteries last longer than Zinc ...
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Are there 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in the USA?
A number of blogs and sites seem to repeat a claim 14,000 ABANDONED WIND TURBINES LITTER THE UNITED STATES, and in particular:
The towering symbols of a fading religion, over 14,000 wind turbines, ...
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Can one generate enough electricity from a plant to power a cellphone?
This company is marketing a product which uses the photosynthesis of a single houseplant to charge a phone.
http://www.bioo.tech/
IIRC the theoretical maximum efficiency of photosynthesis is about ...
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Did the town of Woodland, North Carolina, USA reject a solar plant because of cancer and photosynthesis concerns?
The Raonoke Chowan News Herald reported on 8 December 2015 reports that the town of Woodland, North Carolina, USA rejected a solar farm, citing concerns on photosynthesis and cancer:
Jane Mann said ...
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Is widespread adoption of the electric car unlikely due to lithium scarcity?
Although lithium is very abundant in sea water, only lithium mineral extraction seems to be economically viable. The world's total reserves in lithium minerals is estimated at 13.5 Mt (not sure ...
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Does sealing electrical outlets reduce heating costs?
I stumbled upon this blog post which claims that installing foam gaskets and plugging your electrical outlets with plugs will reduce your heating costs by reducing air leakage. Is this true?
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Are Chinese companies dumping defective solar panels in other countries?
I've come across some people claiming that Chinese solar energy companies are dumping defective panels in other countries. The gist of the claim is that these low-cost panels will drive local ...
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Does the amount of land needed to get the USA to zero-carbon electricity correspond to a small area of Texas?
After watching Elon Musk's presentation regarding the Tesla Powerwall, I had a question.
On his diagram of the USA, he claims that a "tiny blue square" on the top of Texas that consists of solar ...
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Are 1 to 4 tons of coal required to create only one solar panel?
In the There's No Tomorrow video, they affirm several things about solar panels (and a lot of other things).
The one I'm the most curious about is this:
All the world's photovoltaic solar panels ...
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Is there any proof that blackle.com conserves energy? [duplicate]
There are claims that blackle.com conserves energy given that it is darker themed and produces less light. There is a counter under the search box that constantly increases. But in today's era of ...
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Does tapping on "acupoints" during an emotional problem change chemistry in the brain?
This claim is by David Feinstein, pH.D. in Acupoint stimulation in treating
psychological disorders: Evidence of efficacy [.pdf]
Essentially it is a claim that stimulating acupuncture points during ...
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Are claims about saving power by turning appliances off instead of leaving them in standby accurate?
I keep hearing this argument that if you powered down all the appliances you normally leave on standby (TV, hifi, set top box, DVD/Blu ray player, computer, etc) you'll save nearly £90 a year in ...
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Does the UK have enough wind to power the country five times over?
Greenpeace UK tweeted about the UK having enough wind to power the country five times over:
MT @1010: The UK has enough wind to power the country five times over. Let's use it!
After a bit of ...
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