A number of companies currently lease solar panels to homeowners to offset the home’s energy use. The total energy production of a certain residential solar system in suburban Maryland was 7581.62 kWh over the last calendar year. What mass of carbon dioxide did this solar system keep out of the atmosphere during that time, assuming that the energy consumed by this home would otherwise have been supplied solely by coal-burning power plants (note that this isn’t a great assumption, as Maryland also has a nuclear power plant, solar and wind farms, and Montgomery County incinerates waste to generate electricity)? Keep in mind that power plants are inefficient, and are able to convert on average 33% of the heat generated by the combustion of coal into electricity. Assume that coal can be approximated as C(s) (again, not a great assumption, but sufficient for this problem). Use the following data to find the heat of combustion of coal: 2 C(s) + O2(g) --> 2 CO(g) ∆H = -222 kJ CO(g) + H2(g) + O2(g) " CO2(g) + H2O(g) ∆H = -525 kJ 2 H2(g) + O2(g) " 2 H2O(g) ∆H = -484 kJ
A number of companies currently lease solar panels to homeowners to offset the home’s energy use. The total energy production of a certain residential solar system in suburban Maryland was 7581.62 kWh over the last calendar year. What mass of carbon dioxide did this solar system keep out of the atmosphere during that time, assuming that the energy consumed by this home would otherwise have been supplied solely by coal-burning power plants (note that this isn’t a great assumption, as Maryland also has a nuclear power plant, solar and wind farms, and Montgomery County incinerates waste to generate electricity)? Keep in mind that power plants are inefficient, and are able to convert on average 33% of the heat generated by the combustion of coal into electricity. Assume that coal can be approximated as C(s) (again, not a great assumption, but sufficient for this problem). Use the following data to find the heat of combustion of coal:
2 C(s) + O2(g) --> 2 CO(g) ∆H = -222 kJ
CO(g) + H2(g) + O2(g) " CO2(g) + H2O(g) ∆H = -525 kJ
2 H2(g) + O2(g) " 2 H2O(g) ∆H = -484 kJ
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