8.1. Energy Sources
This part of the course starts by looking at all the different energy sources you guys looked at for GCSE. Things like understanding about renewables vs. non renewables, and understanding how fossil fuel and nuclear power stations work. There are a few new bits however, including a bit of quantitative analysis of wind turbines and hydroelectric power stations, as well as introducing the concepts of energy density and specific energy of fuels.
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The topic has been broken up as follows:
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Types of energy sources : Renewables and non-renewables - introducing the different types of sources out there.
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Energy in fuels : Specific energy and energy density - a couple of new bits of terminology for you, dimension analysis is very useful here!
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Sankey Diagrams - you thought you were done with these did you?...
Renewable and Non Renewable Sources
You should be aware of the different types of energy sources used. Often these are divided into subcategories of renewable and non renewable energy sources.
Video Lessons
Chris Doner | Power Plant Basics | Solar, Wind and Hydro | Nuclear Power | IB Specific | ||
Study Nova | Generating Electricity |
Resources
IB Physics | Topic 8 Notes | |||||
IB-Physics.net | Chapter 8 Summary | IB Revision Notes | ||||
Mr. G | 8.1 Teaching Notes | 8.1 Student Notes |
Questions
Cambridge University Press | Topic 8: MCQs | CUP Website Link | Freely available online | |||
Grade Gorilla | 8.1 (Energy Sources) MCQ | Topic 8 (Energy Production) End Quiz | Quick IB Specific Mixed MCQs | |||
Isaac Physics | Nuclear Reactors | |||||
Mr. G | 8.1 Formative Assessment | Topic 8 Summary Qs | IB Specific Questions |
Specific Energy and Energy Density
We have heard the term 'specific' before when discussing heat capacity. In Physics contexts, the word specific means per unit mass, or per kilogram. When talking about specific heat capacity, that was how much energy in Joules per kilogram.
Here, the specific
Video Lessons
Chris Doner | Power Plant Basics (Energy Density) | IB Specific | ||||
Study Nova | Energy Density | Energy Equations |
Resources
IB Physics | Topic 8 Notes | |||||
IB-Physics.net | Chapter 8 Summary | IB Revision Notes | ||||
Mr. G | 8.1 Teaching Notes | 8.1 Student Notes |
Questions
Cambridge University Press | Topic 8: MCQs | CUP Website Link | Freely available online | |||
Grade Gorilla | 8.1 (Energy Sources) MCQ | Topic 8 (Energy Production) End Quiz | Quick IB Specific Mixed MCQs | |||
Mr. G | 8.1 Formative Assessment | Topic 8 Summary Qs | IB Specific Questions |
Sankey Diagrams
There are 5 of these SUVAT equations.
Video Lessons
Chris Doner | Power Plant Basics (Sankey) | IB Specific | ||||
Study Nova | Sankey Diagrams |
Resources
IB Physics | Topic 8 Notes | |||||
IB-Physics.net | Chapter 8 Summary | IB Revision Notes | ||||
Mr. G | 8.1 Teaching Notes | 8.1 Student Notes |
Questions
Cambridge University Press | Topic 8: MCQs | CUP Website Link | Freely available online | |||
Grade Gorilla | 8.1 (Energy Sources) MCQ | Topic 8 (Energy Production) End Quiz | Quick IB Specific Mixed MCQs | |||
Mr. G | 8.1 Formative Assessment | Topic 8 Summary Qs | IB Specific Questions |
Additional Resources
IB Questions
A question by question breakdown of the IB papers by year is shown below to allow you to filter questions by topic. Hopefully you have access to many of these papers through your school system. If available, there may be some links to online sources of questions, though please be patient if the links are broken! (DrR: If you do find some broken links, please contact me through the site)
Questions on this topic (Section 8) are shown in grey.
Use this grid to practice past IB questions topic by topic. You can see from the colours how similar the question topic breakdown is year by year. The more you can familiarise yourself with the IB question style the better - eventually you will come to spot those tricks and types of questions that reappear each year.