1) What are the attractive characteristics of Green Fuels and Chemicals?
2) Comment on the impact of either fossil fuels or biodiesel on mangrove forests.
3) What is the environmental damage from coal mining?
4) What is the environmental damage from coal combustion?
5) What is the environmental damage from oil sands?
6) What is the environmental damage from shale gas production?
7) What is the environmental damage from the combustion of oil-based fuels?
8) What are the advantages of using natural gas instead of other fossil fuels?
9) What are the potential benefits of global warming for Canada?
10) Is a high rate of greenhouse gas emissions per capita necessary to maintain a high standard of living? Please provide examples.
11) Switching from fossil fuels to green fuels would reduce pollution and greenhouse gases. What would be the other advantages?
12) Define the higher and lower heating values (HHV and LHV) of a fuel.
13) Compare the higher heating values (HHV) of oil, coal and wood.
14) Comment on the effect of moisture on the higher heating value (HHV) of wood.
15) What are the most common technologies used to reduce the transportation costs of biomass fuels?
16) Why are wood fireplaces illegal in California's urban areas?
17) Describe the technologies that have been developed to reduce pollution from wood stoves.
18) How do the emissions from wood boilers compare to the emissions of oil boilers?
19) What are the main issues associated with the combustion of wood or agricultural residues in large power stations?
20) What are the main applications of biomass gasification?
21) What are the advantages of biomass gasification, when compared to biomass combustion?
22) Describe the 3 steps common to all biomass gasification processes.
23) Why must heat be provided for gasification? What are the various methods of providing heat in gasification processes?
24) How is the gasification agent related to the heating value of the produced gas?
25) What are the pros and cons of operating a biomass gasifier at high temperature?
26) Compare updraft and downdraft gasifiers.
27) Compare downdraft and bubbling bed gasifiers.
28) Compare circulating fluidized bed and bubbling fluidized bed gasifiers.
29) What is the main principle behind chemical looping gasifiers?
30) Define pyrolysis. What was the first application of pyrolysis, more than 100,000 years ago?
31) What are the main products from biomass pyrolysis? How are they currently used?
32) What are the characteristics of fast pyrolysis?
33) What are the various methods used to bring heat to pyrolysis reactors?
34) List the various types of biomass pyrolyzers (do not provide details).
35) How do bubbling bed pyrolyzers work?
36) How do circulating fluidized bed pyrolyzers work?
37) What are the advantages of mobile pyrolyzers?
38) How does the liquid bio-oil yield from biomass pyrolysis vary with temperature? How do the gas and char yields vary with temperature?
39) How can pyrolytic bio-oil be used?
40) How can pyrolytic bio-char be used?
41) Why must most pyrolytic bio-oils be upgraded?
42) What are the main problems with catalytic cracking of pyrolytic bio-oil?
43) What are the main problems with catalytic hydrogenation of pyrolytic bio-oil?
44) Describe the main features of the bio-oil hydrogenation process involving red mud.
45) What are the main issues with the use of raw vegetable oil in diesel engines?
46) Describe the transesterification process for the production of biodiesel.
47) Compare homogenous and heterogeneous catalysis processes for the production of biodiesel.
48) Why can't transesterification of vegetable oil be used to produce jet fuel?
49) What process can be used to produce green jet fuel from vegetable oil?
50) Compare the uses of either biodiesel or bioethanol in car engines.