Not What You Might Think Trivia Game | Technology and Computers

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Most of us take the availability of electricity for granted. It is all around us and does so many things for us. But, as you might expect, some people do not have access to electricity. In 2005, what portion of the world population did NOT have access to electrical power?

Answer: About one quarter of the world's population

An amazing number! According to the International Energy Agency, in 2005 about 25% of the world's population did not have access to electricity. That is equivalent to the population of China and the United States combined. Of course, it is not those two nations that are without power. Africa suffers the most. In sub-Saharan Africa only 26% of the population had access to electricity.

In other words, at the start of the twenty-first century, a quarter of the human race was living in conditions the developed countries had not seen in over a hundred years. Furthermore, when we think of how much energy we are going to need in the future, we have to think of these people as well. It is not just about having more chargers for our cell phones. It is not even just about increasing populations. It is about the availability of light, heat, refrigeration, clean water, and all the rest electricity brings for all those people who are wholly without those things now.

2. Let's look at how the use of energy has improved our lives. We know that years ago, before we had electricity, steam engines, or petroleum-powered transport, a lot of things were done by human labor. If we consider all the energy used in homes, manufacturing, retail and all the other places to support our current lifestyle, how many people would it take to do each person's share of all the work without our current energy sources? This varies throughout the world, so let's think of the United States in 1999. So, if one person could expend about one megawatt-hour of energy in a year, approximately how many energy servants were working for an average US resident in 1999?

Answer: 77 persons' worth of energy

According to the Department of Energy, in the year 1999 the U.S. used around 21,500 million megawatt-hours of energy. The population at that time was about 280 million, giving about 77 megawatt-hours to each of us. It is estimated that one fit human could produce about one megawatt-hour of energy in a year. Therefore, you have the equivalent of 77 energy servants working for you. Since 1999 this number has probably gone up.

For the entire world the math works out to about 16 energy servants per person. This indicates that we are going to need a lot more energy if the rest of the world is to have the best current standard of living.

3. We do not think about electricity too much. You turn on the switch and the light comes on. We get electricity from a number of sources. In the late years of the twentieth century what was the largest source of electrical power in the United States?

Answer: Burning coal

About half of all the electricity produced in the United States comes from burning coal. Both natural gas and nuclear are about 20% each. Renewables make up the last 10%, with most of that being hydropower.

The good news in that is the US has a lot of coal and, as a fuel, it is pretty inexpensive. The bad news is that it is worst of all the fuel types in the production of pollutants like mercury and sulfur dioxide, and, scaled by the electricity produced, it generates the most greenhouse gases.

4. You may have heard of the term "capacity factor". For an electrical production plant this is the ratio of actual power generated in a time period (usually a year) to the power it would have produced it if that plant ran at its full capability during that entire time period. So, for the United States, which power source do you think has the greatest capacity factor?

Answer: Nuclear power

Nuclear power has a significantly higher capacity factor than other sources. In the 2000s over all plants in the United States, the average capacity factors have been running around 90%. Second place is coal-fired coming in about 70%.

Wind, solar, and even hydro are much less. Water flows in rivers vary through the year, giving hydro an average capacity factor around 40%. Wind varies from site to site, but average wind capacity factors range from 20 to 30%. That makes sense because the wind does not blow at the optimum wind speed all the time.

Solar comes in about 20%. Again, this should not be surprising. After all, on annual bases it is going to be dark half the time. Then, in the mornings and evenings, even if you have a sun-tracking photo-array, the sun is just not as bright as at high noon. Of course, there are also cloudy days.

When we hear of a new 300-megawatt wind farm, you might think it is going to produce about a third of the electricity of a 1000-megawatt nuclear plant. However, those values are the peak generating capability. In terms of electricity that wind farm is going to generate over a year's time, when you take into account the capacity factors, it is more like 10% of the nuclear plant.

5. You may know that in the United States we get about 20% of our electrical power from nuclear energy. However, for some states nearly half or more of the electricity they generate is from nuclear. Can you name them?

Answer: Vermont, South Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Illinois

Vermont is the leader with about 70% of the electricity generated in the state coming from nuclear. The other four are just above or a few percent below 50%.

While this may well change in the future, it has been pretty consistent over the first decade of the 2000s.

6. Across the United States the sources of electricity vary a great deal. Since the environmental impact of electrical power production varies significantly by the source of energy, the environmental impact of electrical power varies a lot from state to state. While this will shift somewhat over time, the massive investments required for major electrical generation systems means the general picture is not subject to rapid change. One way to look at the "Greenness" of a state's electrical power production is to look at the amount of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide it generates per megawatt-hour of electricity produced in the state. If we do this and list them in decreasing order, how many of the states that get near 50% or more of their power from nuclear sources will be found among the twelve states with the lowest CO2/MWh?

Answer: All of them

Vermont has the highest nuclear electricity generation rate at 70%. Most of the rest of its electricity comes from hydropower. Its CO2/MWh is 20 times less than the next lowest value. The other highly nuclear states are only pushed off the very top of our "Greenest" list by the states with a big hydro-power generating fraction, specifically Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California. New Hampshire and New York also make the top of the list with nuclear fractions that are high but less than 50%. Maine rounds out the top twelve with strong hydro and less CO2 intensive natural gas.

7. Can you guess which state releases the highest amount of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of generated electricity?

Answer: North Dakota

North Dakota relies on coal for 94% of its electricity. Wyoming and Utah are close behind.

8. We see a lot of media excitement about solar energy. After all, sunlight is free, isn't it? It terms of cost of electricity power coming out of the generating plant, in the early few years twenty-first century, what was the cost of solar photovoltaic power relative to conventional fossil power, that is coal-fired electricity?

Answer: More expensive

Yes, sunlight is free, but solar panels, the maintenance thereof, and the large tracts of land needed are not free. Using the U.S. Department of Energy data from "Annual Energy Outlook 2011" the levelized cost for solar photovoltaic is $211.0 /Megawatt-hour versus $95.1 for conventional coal. The only things more expensive listed were offshore wind at $243.7 and solar thermal at $312.2.

To be fair, the cost at your house might be less. Maybe the solar panels are on your roof or on the roof of a big store just down the street. In that case you save the cost of the transmission lines and transformers. That would help but not make up all the difference. If the solar plant was hundreds of miles away in the desert, then the factor of two is fully valid.

9. There has been some splash in the media about hydrogen-powered vehicles. These are really cool because when hydrogen burns all you get is pure water. What small problem do these media raves overlook?

Answer: Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is an energy carrier. You need some other source to make it

There are no hydrogen mines or wells. Currently, the major source of hydrogen is production using natural gas. This is a carbon emissions source. One can also make hydrogen from water using electricity. If the electricity comes from coal or natural gas we aren't being very green. Nuclear-generated electricity, wind, or solar would be greener.

However, one has to look at the economics of that versus routing electricity directly to electric cars.

10. You may know that nuclear power plants employ nuclear fission and that nuclear fission is the process in which heavy atoms are split apart releasing energy from that atom's nucleus. But do you know how that energy got stuffed into the heavy atom's nucleus in the first place?

Answer: From supernova explosions far away and long ago

Stars work by nuclear fusion. This is mashing light atoms together to make heavier atoms. The heavier atoms have a lower nuclear energy state and, therefore, energy is given off in this process. However, this works only up to the element iron. For atoms heavier than iron it takes energy to mash them into something bigger.

As a star runs out of light elements the outward pressure of the fusion loses out to the inward forces of gravity. This big collapse releases a huge amount of energy which creates elements above iron.

These heavier elements are ejected out into space and might get swept up in making planets. Some of these, like uranium, can be made to break up into smaller atoms, giving back some of this energy. Nuclear power is frozen star energy.

Source: Author MicjealS

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor CellarDoor before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Not What You Might Think Trivia Quiz

Here is a little quiz on energy whose answers might be a surprise to you. Some of the answers would be likely to change over time, so I have tried to give you the time frame from which I have drawn my answer.

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