Energy Consumption Reading for Wednesday 3/23

What are some ways that electricity can be used?

-Electricity can be used in various ways. I can be converted into such as heat and light.

What are some uses for hydrogen fuel cells?

-Hydrogen fuel provide motive power for liquid-propellant rockets, cars, boats and airplanes, portable fuel cell applications or stationary fuel cell applications, which can power an electric motor.

What are some pros and cons of storing energy as hydrogen? In batteries? In flywheels?

-Hydrogen cells stores energy as a chemical form. Batteries are not only efficient but also they are harmful to both human and environment.


How do policy decisions affect the development of energy technologies?
-Policy can affect the development of energy in both positive and negative ways. Depends on what policy is passed, it can accelerate the speed of development, but it can also slows it too.

Energy Consumption Reading for Tuesday 3/22

P.198

1.How does the concentration of energy in a source affect how people can use energy

-Concentration of energy is closely related with concentrations of wastes, so people must be aware of it and careful with use of energy.

2.How do the United States, China, and Kenya compare in total energy consumption? In per capita energy consumption?

-Total world energy consumption=about 520 billion GJ

-US -> 105 billion GJ (22%)

-China -> 90 billion GJ (17%)

-Kenya -> 0.22 billion GJ (0.04%)

US’s per capita energy use is one of the world’s highest.

(6 times of China, 60 times of Kenya)

P.205

1.How can the same energy services be provided with less energy for lighting? For transportation?

-By using LED light bulbs and electric cars.

2.When does the conservation reduce quality of life? Improve quality of life?

-Conservation can reduce and improve the quality of life at the same time. Dam in China prevented flooding along with a major reduction in nuclear energy. However, many citizens were required to relocate, forcing them out of their homes.

r selection, K selection

In class, we discussed two types of reproduction strategy, r selection and k selection. R selection is when a population is far below the carrying capacity of an unstable environment. R-strategists are identified by short life expectancy, early maturity, small size, strong sex drive, and low intelligence. They often produce many cheap offspring and give them little care. R-strategists aim to make use of ephemeral resources and ensure that at least some offspring survive in unstable environment. Examples for r-strategists are bacteria and frogs. K selection is when a population is at or near the carrying capacity of the environment. K-strategists are identified by long life expectancy, late maturity, strength, weak sex drive, and high intelligence. They often produce few expensive offspring and give them much care. K-strategists tend to favor individual that slowly developing in order to successfully compete for resources. Examples for k-strategists are human, cat, and dog.

The survivorship curve has three different types: Type I, Type II and Type III. Type I represents k-strategist. It shows that k-strategists lost most of the individuals quickly but a few survived individual live much longer than the rest. Type III represents r-strategist. It shows that the r-strategist lost the individuals eventually as age increases. Type II shows the curve between Type I and Type II.

After the “Household pets and pests” activity, we concluded that pets tend to be k-strategist and pests are r-strategists. However this is not universally true as some people have pets that are r-strategists. For example, my friend has fish ,which is r-strategist, as pets. Species with k selection strategy tends to have more intimate relationship with human as they live longer and has higher intelligence than species with r selection strategy. 

http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/courses/bil160/bil160goods/16_rKselection.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/k-selection

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/r-selection

Ecosystem Diversity

1. Why do tropical rainforests have such immense diversity? How do they maintain their diversity?
As questions said, tropical rainforests have immense diversity. They are home of over 5 million species such as insects, plants, and animals. The reason why rainforests have immense diversity is trees. As its name, they get a lot of rainfalls, which provide animals and plants water. Also, temperature of rainforest region is warm, which makes condition of rainforest better to live.
2. What role do tropical forests play in stabilizing climate and atmosphere? Can we take advantage of and enhance their ability to store carbon? Why is this important? Tropical forests plays pretty significant role in stabilizing climate and atmosphere. From the activity about the carbon level that we did before, I was able to know that carbon level affect to temperature, which have close connection with climate and atmosphere. Of course there are a lot of trees in tropical forests. Those trees absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen, which lowers carbon levels. By lowering carbon level, they stabilize climate and atmosphere.

3. How can the data from a tropical rainforest that explains species diversity and abundance be helpful in managing and protecting temperate forests such as those in Yellowstone National Park or any other ecosystem on planet Earth? We can know that every single species have their own important role in food chain. For example, when the wolves in Yellowstone National Park were gone, the balance of ecosystem diversity was broken. As a result, species that were consumed by wolves and below them increases and decreases severely, which means it is unstable.