Portal:Energy/Did you know/3
Cyclone Catarina from the ISS on March 26 2004
According to research by the
IPCC
, government funding for most energy research programmes has been flat or declining for nearly 20 years, and is now about half the 1980 level?
Renewable energy in Iceland
provides over 70% of the country's
primary energy
needs, and 99.9% of Iceland's
electricity
?
The
Rance tidal power plant
in
France
was the world's 1st
electrical generating
station powered by
tidal energy
?
A
tropical cyclone
(example pictured)
can release
heat
energy at the rate of 50 to 200
trillion
joules
per day, roughly 200 times the world-wide
electrical generating
capacity?
Ordinary
fossil fuel power plants
convert between 36% and 48% of the fuel's energy into
electricity
, with the remainder being lost as waste
heat
, about half of which is unavoidable due to the
second law of thermodynamics
?
Burning
biomass
indoors leads to between 1.5 and 2 million deaths each year from
indoor air pollution in developing nations
?
Over 50% of world
small hydroelectricity
generating capacity is in
China
?
Charles Fritts
developed the first
solar cell
in
1884
, although its efficiency was less than 1%?
More Did you know facts