Allow about 10 mins

This section can be studied at home or school. In total it should take up to one hour.

For one task it is suggested that you look around the prep room and/or talk to your technician.

Course requirements

As part of the blended course, this topic can be studied at any time.

Overview

Do we live in a world where energy is the most valuable commodity? Without easy access to the energy that runs our vehicles, heats our homes, and powers our devices, the world as we know it would come crashing down. In modern society, all of our food distribution relies on fuel for our tractors, lorries and ships; electricity for the farms and factories; and extensive refrigeration to keep our produce fresh. The majority of several countries’ wealth comes from their access to high-density natural energy resources like oil.

Our students are likely to be aware of some of the ways we use energy, and the need to reduce our energy use, but they may not have given much thought to where the energy that powers our electrical network comes from. There are lots of ethical reasons to teach about the energy resources that currently power the UK, and the potential technologies that may help give us a cleaner, more efficient future for the UK.

During most of the previous modules we have talked about an energy store as a rather abstract, albeit quantifiable, property that an object can have. An energy resource on the other hand is a form of fuel that can be used for heating, to generate electricity, or to power something else. It is generally more physical – a company can own 100,000 barrels of crude oil, or a power station can require 2.4 kg of enriched uranium. There are less obvious energy resources as well, perhaps you could count the windy hills of Scotland, or the huge Colorado River that feeds the Hoover Dam.

The following are four fundamental questions all associated with the energy resources we use.

• How can we access renewable energy resources? We need to adapt now, because without changes, the world’s fossil fuels will run out this century.
• Which energy resources contribute less to climate change? We could compare the pollution from an electric car to that of a diesel-fuelled vehicle, or look at the proportion of UK electricity generated by different energy resources each day.
• How can we reduce the amount of energy needed by changing our habits? What is the impact of turning our thermostat down by one degree and wearing jumpers inside?
• Can governments, businesses and individuals increase the efficiencies of the systems we use at work and home – through subsidies, laws, or just positive changes to our habits? For example, efforts to improve the insulation of our buildings, increasing the uptake of low-wattage light bulbs, increasing the amount we use public transport and reducing the speed we drive at to improve fuel efficiency.

Therefore, possibly more than any other physics topic, the study of energy resources can help our students to make sensible decisions for their future, and the future of the Earth.

One major problem to a less carbon-intensive future is the storage of energy. On a windy night there is likely to be more electricity generated than can be used, so how does our power grid adapt to cope? If we have taught our students clearly about stores and pathways they hopefully will realise that electricity by itself cannot be stored. There are many clever solutions, some that are being used now, and some that will increase over time. For example, the total proportion of electricity generated jointly by gas and wind was about 60% on many days in 2021, but the proportion from each varies significantly depending on how windy it is. Another example is the Dinorwig Power Station in Wales; it pumps water uphill when the National Grid is over-producing, and releases it at times of need through a generator. As homes get ‘smarter’ it may be that we can charge up our car batteries overnight when the grid is over-producing and then use it in our homes when there are high loads on the network.

In this module we will look at the common energy resources we use in this country, and some places that you and your students can go to for more information.

We will also talk about look at some examples where people have successfully incorporated the ideas of science capital into their own teaching.

Progression

Key terminology

Renewable energy resources are ones that can be replenished as they are being used. They can be replenished by a natural process (the wind keeps flowing, the sun keeps shining, or hydro-electric dam fills with water) or with human action (more crops are collected and then planted for the biodiesel or biomass).

Non-renewable energy resources cannot be replaced and are running out significantly faster than they are being used, including oil, coal, gas and nuclear power.

Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas were created by the decay of organic matter over thousands or millions of years. They are all inherently non-renewable.

The energy resources we are likely to meet with our students are the following:

* Details for the percentage of electricity generation were taken for the period 14^th December 2020 – 13^th December 2021 using https://grid.iamkate.com/. Electricity is also imported and exported from other countries which is not included in the figures above.

Activities