This Energy Flow Charts website is a set of energy Sankey diagrams or flow charts for 136 countries constructed from data maintained by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and reflects the energy use patterns for 2007.
This video illustrates the advantages of woody biomass as a renewable, carbon-neutral energy source. Woody biomass is underutilized and often overlooked as a renewable fuel, and it can be harvested sustainably and burned cleanly.
This video provides an introduction to benefits and limitations of many sources of energy including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. It also discusses hydrogen and hybrid cars.
In this activity students make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil and develop a presentation based on their lab experience. Parts of the activity include creation of bio-diesel from clean vegetable oil, creation of bio-diesel from waste vegetable oil, chemical analysis of biodiesel, purification of biodiesel, and creation of soap from glycerin.
This detailed chemistry lesson from the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on transforming vegetable oil into biodiesel through a process of transesterification. The process described offers a good model for many chemical reaction processes that are used to produce a viable product.
This video provides an overview of the Center for Transportation Technologies and Systems and its research on alternative fuel vehicles and why they have less impact than current fossil fuel-burning cars on the environment.
This fuel cell animation demonstrates how a fuel cell uses hydrogen to produce electricity, with only water and heat as byproducts. The animation consists of four parts - an introduction, fuel cell components, chemical process, and fuel cell stack.
Sankey (or Spaghetti) diagrams parse out the energy flow by state, based on 2008 data from the Dept. of Energy. These diagrams can help bring a local perspective to energy consumption. The estimates include rejected or lost energy but don't necessarily include losses at the ultimate user end that are due to lack of insulation.