Wood for Energy? A total of about 180,000 terawatts of solar power reaches Earth’s surface, of which about 0.06% is used by plants for photosynthesis. Of the energy that goes to photosynthesis, about 1% ends up stored in plant matter (including wood). (Recall that 1 watt = 1 joule/s; 1 terawatt = 1012 watts.)
a. Calculate the total amount of energy that becomes stored in plant matter each second.
b. Suppose that power stations generated electricity by burning plant matter. If all the energy stored in plants could be converted to electricity, what average power, in terawatts, would be possible? Would it be enough to meet world electricity demand, which is of order 10 terawatts?
c. Based on your answer to b, can you draw any conclusions about why humans depend on fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, which are the remains of plants that died long ago? Explain.
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EBK USING & UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS
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