Question Details

The assignment is very simple, with many of the problems dealing with basic dimensional analysis/quantitative conversions. Energy and Climate Quantitative Assignment - Complete all the problems and show all your work and all steps involved. 1. A 500 MW generating coal fired power plant can produce 2,460 kWh of electricity from 1 metric ton of coal. a. If the plant is running at full capacity for one week, what is the electricity output in kWh? b. How much coal (in tons) is required to produce this electricity? c. If one metric ton of 235U produces 8.76 x109 kWh, how much 235U (in tons) is needed to produce the same energy as the coal fired power plant for one week? 2. The standard power curve (power output from a wind turbine as a function of wind speed) of the GE 2.5 MW wind turbine is show below. a. If the annual average capacity factor of a given wind turbine is 30%, what is the annual average power output (in MW) for the wind turbine? b. What is the corresponding wind speed (m/s) for the average wind power output? c. What is the kinetic energy flux (in MW) passing through the area covered by the rotating wind blades at the wind speed in part b? The kinetic energy flux (Pw) is given by the equation below, where v represents the wind speed, σ is the density of the air (1.225 kg/m3) and A is the area covered by the rotating blades, assuming the radius of the wind blade is 50 meters. Pw = ½ x σ x A x V 3 3. A university uses 100 kWh per building per day. They aim to meet 30% of this need using solar energy. The university owns 155 buildings; of these, they have 75 buildings with south-facing roofs on which solar panels can be installed. The average area of the south-facing portion of these roofs is 50 m 2. a. Assume that, on average, a 1 m2 solar panel produces 1 kWh per day. Can the university meet their aim? Show all of your work and intermediate answers.