Question

Find numerical examples of energy usage and thermodynamic computations of efficiency. Use the web to compare the efficiencies of several power production processes. Which are in use and which are planned?

Be sure to cite your sources. Wikipedia, while useful, is not a primary source, and you should not cite it.

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Answer 1

(!)An electric motor consumes 1000Watts of electricity to obtain 900Watts of mechanical power.Determine its efficiency (E).

power is the rate of energy utilisation ,efficiency can be expressed as power ratio .the time units cancel out and we have

efficiency=useful energy output / energy input = useful power output /power input

therefore efficiency of this electric motor is,

E=mechanical energy (power) output /electric energy ( power) input

E=900 W/1000W=0.9=90%

example (2);

A gas furnace has an efficiency of 85%.how many BTU will it produce from 1000 BTU of natural gas.

The function of a gas furnace is to convert the chemical energy of the gas into heat (thermal energy)

therefore we have

useful energy output =(energy input) efficiency

=1000BTU(chemical energy)*85 BTU(thermal energy)/100BTU(chemical energy)

=850BTU(thermal energy)

several power production processes which are planned are:

A 35 TW future is planned by the year 2030 which involves in production nuclear energy .its plan is to increase the nuclear capacity to 30 times over 1960 which is equivalent to new nuclear power station which can generate 1 giga watt of electricity every 2 to 4 days .its plan is to increase the fossil fuels and yearly an equivalent to new alaska pipeline can be brought into existence.

The plan of 11.2 TW scenerio which serves to increase renewable sources and nuclear energy with which serves to illustrate that the postulated average growth of around 30% per capita in primary consumption in developing countries will require even under extremely efficient energy usage regimes.

At present since the population increases day by day, the power consumption is more .now a days we generate power through solar thermal power plants,wind power plants,geo thermal power plants and hydro electric power plants.We are commonly depending mostly on non renewable sources than that of renewable sources.so more new projects are designed which are less likely to depend on non renewale sources.