Exam 7: Second Law of Thermodynamics: and You Cant Even Break Even

Which method of fueling your car is likely to be more energy efficient, and why: gasoline used in a standard car engine or electricity taken from a coal- fueled generating plant and stored in lightweight car batteries? Assume that the batteries convert electricity to work at 100% efficiency, and that electricity is transported from the power plant to the car at 100% efficiency.

Conventional automobile efficiencies cannot conceivably be higher than about 25%, even with perfect engineering. This is due to

During each cycle of its operation, a certain gasoline engine consumes 500 joules of chemical energy, while exhausting 300 joules of thermal energy to the environment. The energy efficiency of this heat engine is

A fundamental physical reason for the bicycle's high efficiency as a transportation device is

A large coal- fired electric generating plant burns about 1000 kg [one tonne] of coal every 10 seconds. About much of the tonne actually goes into producing electric energy?

The overall energy efficiency of a typical automobile is closest to

Which of the following best represents the energy transformations in a coal- fired electric power plant?

Is a fuel- cell vehicle properly described as a "heat engine"?

The main limitation on the efficiency of heat engines is due to

Which one of the following is responsible for the "one- way" nature of time, i.e., for the distinction between past and future?

A block of wood slides to a stop along a tabletop. In this process,

Suppose an car engine could be made to burn at a higher temperature, without harming or altering any other part of the engine's operation. At the higher temperature, the engine would

Large curved cooling towers can often be seen at

A typical automobile consumes about 70 kW of power from the gas tank. How many 100- watt light bulbs could this light up, if the energy were used to light electric bulbs rather than to run the car?

What is the efficiency of a heat engine whose thermal energy input is 400 J and whose exhaust is 300 J?

According to the second law of thermodynamics,

Which of the following would be "exponential" growth of your bank savings account?

The "law of heat flow" is one form of

Country X increases its population by 5% per year. How long will it be before its population doubles?

Lilies in a certain pond double their total lake area covered every week. The growth of the lilies is