Environmental Systems and Societies · Topic 7: Natural resources

ES7.2 — Energy sources: uses and management

Environmental Systems and Societies · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes

1. Energy sources and rising consumption

   Renewable and non-renewable sources, most output converted to electricity, and why global energy demand keeps rising while fossil fuels dominate.

2. Sustainability and energy choices

   How the sustainability of sources varies, the environmental cost of every source including restoration, and the factors behind a country's energy choices.

3. Storage, conservation and efficiency

   Why intermittent renewables need storage, the peak-shaving solutions available, and how conservation and efficiency cut dependence on imports.

4. HL: Energy security and fossil fuels

   What energy security means and how it is improved, and the global economy's dependence on finite reserves of coal, oil and natural gas.

5. HL: Nuclear power and battery storage

   Nuclear as a non-renewable low-carbon source with its trade-offs, and the impacts of the large-scale battery storage needed to cut carbon emissions.