Course: REEC 120 Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Unit 11 Overview

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In Unit 11 we are going to explore materials from the book Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David Mackay. You are expected to read “The Last Thing We Should Talk About” pages 240-249.

When setting up this course I really liked the book Mr. Mackay put together. I found it similar to my technical grip of the world. I think it is fitting to end the discussion on CO_2. The fizz in our soft drinks is a problem. One ton of CO_2 contains about 200 pounds of carbon. Burn one pound of coal to heat a home, and then have everybody burn a ton heating their homes; that creates about 6 gigatons of carbon.

The vast amount of carbon is stored in the oceans. The extra emissions of CO_2 we release will take a long time to make it back to the ocean, but before it does it will make some changes to our Earth.