Though corals worldwide are threatened due to climate change and local stressors, the front lines of the battle are microscopic in scale. Under stress, many reefs that were formerly dominated by coral are shifting to systems ...
Ecology
Jun 03, 2020
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17
Power consumption of a home refrigerator can be cut by 29% while improving cooling capacity. Researchers replaced widely used but environmentally unfriendly R134a refrigerant with the more energy-efficient R600a dosed with ...
Nanophysics
Jun 01, 2020
5
81
Although the coronavirus pandemic has dominated recent headlines, climate change hasn't gone away. Many experts are calling for a "green" economic recovery that directs investments into low-carbon energy sources and technologies.
Environment
May 26, 2020
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13
A crystalline compound called ruthenium dioxide is widely used in industrial processes, where it's particularly important for catalyzing a chemical reaction that splits molecules of water and releases oxygen. But the exact ...
Analytical Chemistry
May 22, 2020
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37
Modern sustainability practices often encourage resource and energy efficiencies across separate sectors, such as food production or biofuels, but this siloed approach could actually lead to ongoing environmental decay, according ...
Environment
May 22, 2020
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38
On March 1, New York State instituted its plastic bag ban, joining seven other states in an attempt to lessen litter, garbage in landfills, ocean pollution, and harm to marine life. March 1 was also the day that New York ...
Environment
May 01, 2020
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30
A mass move to working-from-home accelerated by the Coronavirus pandemic might not be as beneficial to the planet as many hope, according to a new study by the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS).
Environment
Apr 30, 2020
3
4
Feeding at the ocean's surface appears to play an important role in New Zealand blue whales' foraging strategy, allowing them to optimize their energy use, Oregon State University researchers suggest in a new study.
Plants & Animals
Apr 22, 2020
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275
We're so used to putting on the AC when it gets hot that we don't even stop to think about what we're doing. But the impact it's having on the globe may surprise you.
Earth Sciences
Apr 21, 2020
2
6
The rapid progression of technology has led to a huge increase in energy usage to process the massive troves of data generated by devices. But researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at ...
Nanophysics
Apr 13, 2020
0
320
In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 Exajoules (= 5 x 1020 J) with 80-90% derived from the combustion of fossil fuels. This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 16 TW (= 1.585 x 1013 W). Not all of the world's economies track their energy consumption with the same rigor, and the exact energy content of a barrel of oil or a ton of coal will vary with quality.
Most of the world's energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth - some of that energy has been preserved as fossil energy, some is directly or indirectly usable e.g. via wind, hydro or wave power. The term solar constant is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area, measured on the outer surface of Earth's atmosphere, in a plane perpendicular to the rays. The solar constant includes all types of solar radiation, not just visible light. It is measured by satellite to be roughly 1366 watts per square meter, though it fluctuates by about 6.9% during a year - from 1412 W/m2 in early January to 1321 W/m2 in early July, due to the Earth's varying distance from the sun, and by a few parts per thousand from day to day. For the whole Earth, with a cross section of 127,400,000 km², the total energy rate is 1.740×1017 W, plus or minus 3.5%. This 174 PW is the total rate of solar energy received by the planet; about half, 89 PW, reaches the Earth's surface.
The estimates of remaining worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ (1 YJ = 1024J) and the available nuclear fuel such as uranium exceeding 2.5 YJ. Fossil fuels range from 0.6-3 YJ if estimates of reserves of methane clathrates are accurate and become technically extractable. Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
