Your Questions About Sustainable Energy Definition

admin answers:

A society is sustainable when it can survive indefinitely. This may seem like a broad definition, but it really gets to the heart of it. A society becomes sustainable when all the processes and methods it uses for continuation of economic, social, environmental, and institutional aspects will remain feasible in the future.

Our society, right now, is not sustainable. I could go on for hours, but one of the major problems is our reliance on oil and coal. It is sustainable short term, but these are not renewable resources, so in the long run we will run out. This is one aspect of the green movement, is trying to switch over to renewable energy (ie wind, water, solar, geothermal, etc). We are also slowly but surely killing off the environment. Actually, the Wikipedia article on sustainability is a very accurate and helpful one, and I judge this based off of a few years of studying sustainability and sustainable technologies.

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

admin answers:

D

That’s the definition of open vs. Closed. A closed system is self-contained. An open system gets inputs from and gives outputs to the part of the world outside it.

However, bear in mind that to some extent, it’s a matter of definition. A nuclear power plant might be considered a closed system, on the power source side anyway, by considering the atomic pile part of the system. And at the same time, the same people might consider a coal plant open on the power source side because of the constant feed of coal from the world. In truth, that’s more of a defined difference. The atomic pile, for instance, might need refueling only every several years while the coal plant needs it every second, but they both still need refueling from the world outside the system.

Time IS a major factor in defining open vs. Closed. In a related way, so is the ease with which the transfers occur. And often one defines something as closed because the aspects of it that are open are not of concern to the definer.

Of course, there’s no truly closed system. Most wouldn’t be much use anyway. And nature is notoriously leaky when it builds systems so built-by-chance doesn’t really produce anything close to closed either.

However, one should also point out that the other three choices are incorrect. So D) is the answer for positive and negative reasons both.