Clay Wagner Professor Kern SCI-220
March 10 2024
Journal One
The readings this week were a challenge to me. I have never learned about energy and energy output, so the terms were new and a bit confusing to me, my understanding of capacity factor is the ratio of the actual energy that can be produced to the hypothetical maximum of energy produced (UMass Amherst, 1970). From my understanding, this could be the actual energy that a wind turbine produces to the maximum energy that it can produce at a given time. My understanding of efficiency is providing the same amount of energy at a lower cost. This could be a wind turbine producing the same amount of energy at a better rate, so the cost goes down. It surprises me that the capacities for energy types such as nuclear and geothermal are so high, yet not widely used. Nuclear energy’s lack of widespread use is less surprising due to the dangers associated with nuclear power plants. I would think that people would want to use an energy source with a higher capacity factor so that energy is not being wasted, but I understand the struggles of switching to different energy sources. Thinking about my energy mix, I would definitely take the capacity factors into account. Renewable energy sources have a similar capacity factor to coal and gas but are much better for the environment. Seeing that natural gas is the highest use source of energy in the U.S is worrying. With sources such as nuclear being a cleaner option at a higher capacity factor, I believe the solution to be working to find a way to safely make it a widespread source of energy.
