GCSE Geography: Energy Security

Energy is the third of the resources that GCSE Geography students can study in depth at a global scale; in AQA 8035, for example, students choose food, water or energy. This material is for students whose chosen resource is energy, and it takes you from the causes of rising demand to the choices involved in building a sustainable energy future.

You begin with the key terms: energy security and insecurity, surplus and deficit, the energy mix, renewable and non-renewable sources, and carbon footprints. A calculation question asks you to work out the share of renewables in an electricity mix. You then consider why consumption is rising, with economic development, a growing population and new technology, and the factors that affect supply: physical factors such as geology and rivers, the cost of exploitation, technology, and political factors such as conflict and trade disputes.

The impacts of energy insecurity follow: the search for oil and gas in difficult and environmentally sensitive places such as the Arctic and deep oceans, economic and environmental costs, biofuels competing with food crops for land, lower industrial output and the potential for conflict. The strategies to increase supply compare renewable sources (biomass, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, wave and solar) with fossil fuels and nuclear power, weighing up intermittency, waste, emissions and cost. Questions on oil sands and fracking show the advantages and disadvantages of extracting a fossil fuel.

The final section looks at sustainable energy: carbon footprints and individual choices, energy conservation in homes, workplaces and transport, demand reduction, technology that uses fossil fuels more efficiently such as carbon capture and storage, and small local renewable schemes in lower-income countries, such as micro-hydro, solar lanterns and biogas.

The material offers a quiz with explanations, flashcards for key terms, a printable written sheet of eight exam-style tasks (including an energy-mix calculation and evaluations of fossil-fuel extraction and local renewable schemes) and an oral exam in which an examiner asks you one question at a time and ends with short feedback. Add details from the examples your class studied to strengthen your written answers.

• Define energy security, energy mix and carbon footprint
• Explain why energy consumption is rising and the factors affecting supply
• Describe the impacts of energy insecurity
• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of renewable and non-renewable sources
• Evaluate the extraction of a fossil fuel such as oil sands or shale gas
• Evaluate energy conservation, efficiency technology and local renewable schemes

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the DfE GCSE geography subject content (resource management) and board specifications such as AQA GCSE Geography 8035, section 3.2.3 (resource management: energy).