- Industry: Broadcasting & receiving
- Number of terms: 5074
- Number of blossaries: 1
- Company Profile:
The largest broadcasting organisation in the world.
A kilowatt-hour is an amount of energy equivalent to a power of one kilowatt (a thousand watts) running for one hour. The unit is commonly used on electricity meters. If you know how many kilowatt-hours of energy your household uses, you can translate this into kilograms of CO2 emitted by multiplying it by 0.527. A megawatt hour (MWh) is an amount of energy equivalent to the power of one megawatt (a million watts) running for one hour. Similarly, a gigawatt hour (GWh) is a billion watts for one hour, and a terawatt hour (TWh) is a trillion. While your domestic gas bill will be set out in kWh, the output for a power station, for example, will obviously be expressed in one of these much larger units.
Industry:Natural environment
A megatonne is one million tonnes. It is commonly used to describe the large amounts of CO2 emitted by power stations.
Industry:Natural environment
Mercury (chemical symbol Hg) is a metal that is liquid at standard temperature and pressure. It is used in the manufacture of low-energy lightbulbs (CFLs and other fluorescent lights), and extra care must be taken in their disposal, especially when they are broken, because of mercury's toxicity.
Industry:Natural environment
Ozone is made up of three oxygen atoms. It has benefits and dangers depending on where in our atmosphere it occurs: near ground level, it is a pollutant that affects respiration; 10-50km up, in the stratosphere, the ozone layer filters out potentially harmful ultraviolet rays (which cause skin cancer) from reaching the earth. Ozone also functions as a greenhouse gas, though it is considered a less potent one than CO2.
Industry:Natural environment
A polymer is a giant molecule made up of thousands of atoms. It can be natural or man-made (synthetic). Many plastics in everyday use are polymers, such as polythene or PVC; but then so is cellulose, which makes up wood pulp from which paper is manufactured.
Industry:Natural environment
Renewable energy comes from natural sources that can be replenished and not permanently depleted - such as biomass, hydro-power, geothermal heat, solar power, wind power, and wave and tidal power - and most of which do not produce CO2emissions. They are unlike fossil fuels, which took millennia to form and cannot be replenished.
Industry:Natural environment
A renewables obligation is the legal requirement for UK energy providers to source a certain percentage (currently 8%) of their energy from renewable sources. They are awarded renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) to demonstrate that they have done so.
Industry:Natural environment
Secondary glazing is a less effective form of double glazing, used where the latter is unaffordable or undesirable in some way (such as in listed buildings). A separate layer of glass or plastic is fitted to the inside of the existing window frame. The gap between the two panes determines its effectiveness in insulating against heat loss and noise.
Industry:Natural environment
A semiconductor is a solid material that is able to conduct electricity, but with conductivity less than that of a good conductor and greater than an insulator. Semiconductors include silicon, and are used in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells, as well as computer chips and other electronic devices.
Industry:Natural environment
Silicon is a chemical element known as a 'metalloid' (because it has intermediate properties between a metal and a non-metal). It is used as a semiconductor, for example in microchips in computers, and to make photovoltaic cells for solar panels.
Industry:Natural environment
