Sustainable Energy, Volcanic Risks, and Geosphere Resource Management
Energy Policy Principles
6. What are the basic principles which should underpin energy policy in the coming decades to prevent a collapse of development?
- Demand-side management: Combine progressive price increases with citizen education to reduce consumption and waste.
- Promote reuse and recycling: Organize waste collection networks and support businesses engaged in these technologies.
- Gradual replacement of non-renewables: Support renewable energy initiatives at community, state, and government levels.
- Strengthen research: Develop efficient technologies with financial assistance from relevant bodies.
Volcanic Activity Risks
7. Briefly describe the risks of volcanic activity, noting the measures taken to reduce its effects.
The main risks arising from volcanic eruptions are:
- Solid Products: Impact of pyroclastic materials, high temperatures, and volcanic ash emissions.
- Liquid Emissions: Lava flows damaging land, fields, and buildings. Speed depends on slope and lava fluidity.
- Gaseous Emissions: Hot clouds of gas and solids ejected at high speeds, causing catastrophic effects due to temperature, speed, and toxic gases (H2S, SO2, SO3).
- Lahar Mudflows: Melting snow creates fast-moving mudflows, devastating areas and preventing evacuation (e.g., Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia, 1985).
- Subsidence and Avalanches: Collapsed volcanic cones, increasing danger with slope. Can trigger tsunamis on islands or coasts.
- Magmatic-Phreatic Eruptions: Magma interacting with water creates steam, increasing pressure and causing violent eruptions, sometimes leading to tsunamis.
- Tsunamis: Giant waves from eruptions or earthquakes, causing major coastal disasters.
Sustainable Resource Management
8. What are the principles that should govern the management of resources and waste from the geosphere from the point of view of sustainability?
The principle of sustainability, similar to sustainable drainage, has two aspects:
- For energy, sustainability involves replacing non-renewable resources with perennial, renewable ones, investing profits in this replacement.
- For mineral resources, sustainability involves reuse and recycling, alongside replacement strategies.
Scientific and technological research should aim for higher energy efficiency in all processes: extraction, transportation, use, and waste treatment.
Internal Energy and Plate Tectonics
9. Source of the internal energy and processes and events to which it gives rise.
Internal processes are caused by Earth’s internal energy, originating in the interior and manifesting on the crust. Plate tectonics theory explains these processes: the lithosphere is divided into plates moving horizontally, driven by mantle convection currents from core heat. Evidence includes the younger age of oceanic crust, heat flow in ocean basins, Pangaea’s fragments, and seismicity at plate boundaries.
Lithospheric plates consist of the lithospheric mantle (above the asthenosphere) and the crust.
Geochemical Cycle
10. Geochemical cycle: an outline of the place and explains what it represents.
Geochemical Cycle: Magma from the mantle forms magmatic rocks. These can undergo metamorphic processes due to temperature and pressure changes or weathering and erosion on the surface. Eroded material is transported, sedimented, and forms sedimentary rocks. These can erode again, be metamorphosed under pressure and temperature, or be engulfed by magma. Metamorphic rocks, when exposed, can weather and form sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary rocks under extreme conditions can melt (anatexis) and form magmatic rocks, which can also melt again to create new magmas.
Renewable Energy Disadvantages
11. Disadvantages of renewable energies and comparison with renewables.
Geosphere Resources and Environmental Issues
12. Resources of the geosphere: type (single list) and environmental problems associated with its use.
Mineral Resources:
- Metallic
- Non-metallic or industrial quarry
Energy Resources:
- Fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas
- Nuclear fission energy
- Geothermal energy