Energy can be transferred usefully, stored or dissipated, but it cannot be created or destroyed. In all cases, energy comes from one store and is transferred to another store. This means that all the energy in the Universe was present at the Big Bang and will still be around at the very end of time.
Can energy be used once it has been used?
However, with every transformation less energy is available and that is what is meant by the energy being used. Once it’s used it can not be used again. How to transform energy from one type to another, and the efficiency of the transformation, is what occupies the minds of engineers, endlessly. Where does the energy that everyone uses go?
What is the importance of electricity in our life?
In the 20th century, electricity became a convenient way of distributing energy that can be used for a wide range of devices and applications such as lighting, heating, computing technologies and operating machinery. Demand for energy varies with the time of year and the time of day.
Can energy be transformed without being used?
By definition, energy is the ability to do work. Once the work is done, that energy has been used and can’t be used again. However, the question is ambiguous as it does not say what it means by “used”—energy can be transformed without being used.
Why do we need energy?
Every person, animal and device transfers energy. Much of the energy that is supplied by electricity must be generated from other energy stores - some are renewable but most are non-renewable. Nearly everything requires energy and a way to use energy is by transferring it from one energy store to another.
What happens to energy after it is used?
Energy is neither created nor destroyed When people use energy, it doesn't disappear. Energy changes from one form of energy into another form of energy. A car engine burns gasoline, converting the chemical energy in gasoline into mechanical energy.
Can energy be used again?
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, meaning that the total amount of energy in the universe has always been and will always be constant.
How does energy become useful to our everyday life?
Heating and cooling our homes, lighting office buildings, driving cars and moving freight, and manufacturing the products we rely on in our daily lives are all functions that require energy.
What eventually happens to all energy?
Answer and Explanation: All of the energy that enters an ecosystem flows through the living organisms and is used by them, and much of this energy is released in the form of heat. The chemicals that are used as nutrients in an ecosystem are cycled through and are re-used.
Is unlimited energy possible?
Earth's gravity will never go away as long as it has mass. But since this is just a force and not an energy, the never-ending nature of gravity cannot be used to extract infinite energy, or any energy at all, for that matter.
Can we create infinite energy?
A perpetual motion machine needs no energy input to create new energy, unlike a conventional model such as a car engine, which needs fuel input, or a solar panel, which needs sunlight. If made possible, a perpetual motion machine could generate infinite energy.
Why is it important to save energy?
Saving energy reduces air and water pollution and conserves natural resources, which in turn creates a healthier living environment for people everywhere. At the same time, efficiency also saves money and creates jobs.
What is the importance of energy to humans?
Energy is essential to life and all living organisms. The sun, directly or indirectly, is the source of all the energy available on Earth. Our energy choices and decisions impact Earth's natural systems in ways we may not be aware of, so it is essential that we choose our energy sources carefully.
What uses the most energy?
Here's a breakdown of the biggest energy use categories in the typical home:Air conditioning and heating: 46 percent.Water heating: 14 percent.Appliances: 13 percent.Lighting: 9 percent.TV and Media Equipment: 4 percent.
Can energy be destroyed?
The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another. This means that a system always has the same amount of energy, unless it's added from the outside.
Where does the lost energy go?
The kinetic energy lost by a body slowing down as it travels upward against the force of gravity was regarded as being converted into potential energy, or stored energy, which in turn is converted back into kinetic energy as the body speeds up during its return to Earth.
Where does energy ultimately go?
The energy spent are used to do work. Ultimately some part of the energy are wasted due to friction as sound, heat etc. and fo to the surrounding. Some part are stored in the bodies on which work is done as its internal energy(KEorPE).
How do we reuse energy?
Recycling waste energy streams is accomplished by Primary Energy in two ways: Converting industrial waste energy streams into heat and power with on-site generation plants. of electricity to displace boiler fuel.
Can energy be created or destroyed?
The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another. This means that a system always has the same amount of energy, unless it's added from the outside.
Why can energy not be created or destroyed?
The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics, states that the energy of a closed system must remain constant—it can neither increase nor decrease without interference from outside.
Why energy is generated not destroyed?
due to the law of conservation of energy. it states that the total energy of an isolated system can not change. energy can neither produced nor destroyed but can change form, instance chemical energy can be change into kinetic energy.
What happens to the kinetic energy of a block when it stops?
After some time, we observed that the block stopped, it kinetic energy decreased to zero. Since the potential energy is assumed constant hence the total mechanical energy of the system decreased.
How long would it take for the Sun to explode?
It doesn’t have enough mass to create a class II supernova. A star needs to have a mass 10 times that of our sun in order for it to explode. If the sun were to explode it would take around 134 days for the shock wave to reach Earth. But the neutrinos and radiation travel at the speed of light and would reach us in 8 minutes and we would all die.
How does energy work?
One has to understand what it means to use energy: using energy means channeling it through the devices of your convenience in order to perform desired action, or to cause a desired effect. For example, you may want to increase temperature in the room. Nothing happens to the energy. It does not change form, since energy has no form. It just flows from one place to the next through the devices of your choosing. If the energy was stored, it gets released. If the energy was moving, it gets stored or retransmitted elsewhere. Using energy means controlling its movement, rather than consuming it. If
How to remove helium from the Sun?
Look up something called starlifting. This would involve using arrays of satellites around the sun to create magnetic fields, such satellites powered by the sun itself using solar power. Mirrors could be used to reflect energy back strategically to certain areas of the sun to heat up those materials even more so that they can escape the sun’s gravity more easily. The magnetic fields would funnel that material for further processing. The helium is the main thing we want to remove (as this is the primary culprit involved), but the sun also consists of many Earth masses of other very useful raw m
What is the law of conservation of energy?
Law of Conservation of Energy states that Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can be converted from one form to another. So when the energy is used up it is converted to another form. For instance, in a light bulb electrical enegy is converted into heat and light energy. , PhD.
How long will it take for the Sun to become a red giant?
The sun, however, will become a red giant in about 7.5 billion years and the size of the sun will expand to about the orbit of Jupiter. Everything within that radius will roast.
What does it mean to use energy?
One has to understand what it means to use energy: using energy means channeling it through the devices of your convenience in order to perform desired action, or to cause a desired effect. For example, you may want to increase temperature in the room. Nothing happens to the energy.
What is the caloric theory?
And like water, caloric was neither created nor destroyed while it flowed. To use the jargon of modern physics, caloric was thought to be a conserved quantity. The caloric theory was rigorous and quantitative. A chunk of copper at a certain high temperature contained a known amount of caloric. If you put it into a container of a known amount of cool water, you could calculate how much caloric would flow out of the copper into the water, and thereby predict with precision the temperature at which the two substances would come to equilibrium. Nevertheless, a former American colonist named Count von Rumford found the caloric theory wanting.
What is the term for the temperature of energy?
To do that job, Clausius coined the word entropy. Entropy measures the temperature of energy. A given amount of thermal energy - the random motions of atoms and molecules - has low entropy when it's at high temperature, and the same amount of energy has higher entropy when it's at lower temperature. Thus the principle that energy always runs downhill to lower temperature is completely equivalent to saying that entropy always increases.
How does heat work in Carnot's world?
In Carnot's world and ours, heat always runs downhill, from high temperature to low. Just as all the rainwater that falls on the land eventually finds its way to the ocean, all heat, generated by whatever means, at high temperature will eventually wind up as the same amount of heat at ambient temperature. If we devise a "proper machine," part of the heat energy can be made to do work along the way, but whatever the case, it always winds up in the air or the oceans. Of course, "high temperature" and "low temperature" are relative terms. In principle, a machine can be made to do work using heat as it runs between any two temperatures, as long as one is higher than the other. But Carnot was able to show that the higher the high temperature, and the lower the low temperature, the more efficient the engine would be. For all practical purposes, the burning fuel determines the high temperature and our surroundings - the air or the seas - become the low temperature for real engines.
How does heat affect the temperature of a gas?
Think of heat and the temperature of two different gases. One is the gas involved in the combustion of a fossil fuel; it could be the air in the combustion chamber of a steam engine. Heat is the quantity of energy that comes from the burning fuel. Once the fuel is burned, it takes the form of the kinetic energy of the gas molecules bouncing rapidly around in the combustion chamber. The absolute temperature is directly proportional to the kinetic energy of the gas molecules. ... Eventually, however, the same quantity of heat will wind up at lower temperature, the temperature of ambient air. Then, too, it takes the form of kinetic energy - in this case, a very slight increase of the kinetic energy of the air molecules in the atmosphere. On the average, each molecule of the cool gas (the ambient atmosphere) has gained much less kinetic energy than each molecule of the hot gas (the air in the combustion chamber) gained from the burning fuel. But the total amount of energy is the same. That must mean that the same quantity of heat is spread out into a much larger quantity of gas. Instead of being concentrated in the intense heat of the combustion chamber, it has spread into the benign cool of the great outdoors. This spreading out of heat as the temperature decreases renders the energy useless to do work. That is the essence of increasing entropy.
What is the second law of thermodynamics?
Since the second law [of thermodynamics] is so important, let's look carefully in modern terms at what it says. It says you can't build a machine that will extract heat at low temperature and deposit that same amount of energy at higher temperature, without having any other effect. ...
What is a steam engine?
The steam engine is only one of a class of machines called heat engines. All heat engines start with heat at high temperature, turn part of that energy into work, and must ... dump part of the heat at low temperature in order to return to their starting points and keep on going. Heat engine types include the internal combustion engines of most cars (known to engineers as the Otto cycle), diesel engines, turbines, and the Stirling engine. ...
How to convert chemical potential energy into electrical potential energy?
For example, let's take my hybrid Prius for a short drive. Disable the extremely inefficient gasoline engine so we're just operating off the battery. Closing a circuit causes the chemical potential energy stored in the battery to start to generate electricity; that electricity generates magnetic fields in the electric motor that starts that motor turning, that turning motor then starts turning the wheels of the car, and the car starts moving. We have converted chemical potential energy into electrical and magnetic energy, and then into kinetic energy of the moving car. Now take the car up a hill. If we just coast up, not using the engine at all, the car slows down as its kinetic energy is turned into the gravitational potential energy associated with altitude. Coasting down the other side of the hill, the car accelerates again as that gravitational potential energy is converted back into its own kinetic energy of motion. Slowing down the car with the regenerative brakes turns that kinetic energy back into reverse motion of the electric motor, creating electrical energy which then recharges the battery, turning everything back into chemical potential energy once again. If I end at the same altitude I started, in principle the battery can be just as full after that drive as if I had never left the parking lot.
Why do people like green energy?
We like it because renewable energy is sustainable, meaning that it will never run out, unlike the vast amount of fossil fuels that we still use today. There are many different kinds like: solar power, hydroelectric generators, hydrogen fuel, wind turbines, etc.
Why don't people take advantage of green technology?
So if we have the technology to save the world, then why don’t more people take advantage of it? It’s expensive and people don’t like change. When people’s lives are going well, and they are able to pay the electricity and oil bills okay they don’t want to risk losing that stability by changing to something new like renewable energy. To take advantage of these opportunities and create a change for the better of the environment , the government needs to create incentives for people to start making a gradual change to a more green society . Fossil fuel prices are rising so a change will occur in the future regardless. According to Truth-Out.Org, Germany is the leading solar energy user in the world. Yet the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, isn’t even close to that and only uses it as 8% of the energy use. So money isn’t the problem. It’s a change in culture.
What does "no waste products" mean?
No waste products means that it doesn’t affect the environment. There are also economic benefits for some types of renewable energy especially solar energy. Even though they are initially expensive, they often pay for themselves in the long run.
Why do hydroelectric plants require mass amounts of land?
For example, hydroelectric plants require mass amounts of land to store water (specifically land for that is productive for agriculture), and the plants themselves cause environmental problems. The question that everybody asks and considers is whether it is worth the cost. It is a simple value question.
Why does reduced cost of operation reduce cost of operation?
This also reduced the cost of operation because it runs by itself once the tool is produced. Reduced costs can also come from the fact that it doesn’t originate from a scarce resource whose prices increase because of the need to preserve such a resource.
Is solar energy renewable?
Actually according to Truth-Out.org, solar energy is known to be the best type of renewable energy because it doesn’t create greenhouse gases even in terms of production of the solar panels which cannot be said for all forms of renewable energy.
Which country uses the most solar energy?
According to Truth-Out.Org, Germany is the leading solar energy user in the world. Yet the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, isn’t even close to that and only uses it as 8% of the energy use. So money isn’t the problem. It’s a change in culture.
How does a battery tablet work?
As the device is active, this chemical energy is released to move electrons round the various circuits. Some is converted to photons, and released as light from the screen (not a lot, maybe a few %). Almost all of the energy is converted to heat. Everything the processor does produces just heat, the computational work does not store energy. A more efficient processor can do more computation for the same amount of heat generated. You often won't notice this heat being generated by battery powered devices because the rate of heat generation is low, and the temperature gain is often small.
What happens when a waterwheel turns?
In this scenario, the water is analogous to the electrons moving through wire/devices. Neither the water nor the electrons disappear, they just go from a higher energy state to a lower energy state, and that difference in energy is used to do work.
Why does the flow of electricity stop in my tablet?
And the flow of electricity in your tablet (or whatever) stops when the battery stops injecting energy into the system. Because you have depleted the chemical process that produced the electricity. You can replace the depleted battery with a new one that still holds the chemical potential, or you can re-charge the battery and reverse the chemical process.
How does energy work in a tablet?
In the case of the battery powering the tablet, the energy starts out in chemical form inside the battery. It then takes on electrical form coming out of the battery. The tablet uses it in electrical form, but eventually it gets turned to heat. If you leave a tablet running just sitting there, you should be able to notice that it's a bit warmer than whatever it's sitting on. The energy that was in the battery in chemical form is now in the stuff the tablet is made of in thermal form. Eventually that will heat the air in the room, which will heat something else, etc. By the time the relatively small amount of energy in a tablet battery is spread out over a whole room, you'd need sensitive scientific instruments to detect it.
Why does my bicycle stop turning?
A bicycle chain stops turning when the rider stops injecting energy into the system (when they stop pedaling.) And the flow of electricity in your tablet (or whatever) stops when the battery stops injecting energy into the system. Because you have depleted the chemical process that produced the electricity.
What happens to energy when a battery is used?
While battery works and gradually finishes, the energy (that was stored in battery), gets out to environment The energy (=unstability; or ability to do work) that was stored in new-battery, comes out (when the electrical current do some work in the gadget).
What happens when you plug up a water line?
Once you plugged up the line, one side of the plug would have pressure from incoming water and the other side would have no pressure. If, for example, you had a blender you wanted to use, your blender would have two tubes. You plug one tube into the high pressure and the other into the return pipe.
How are synthetic fuels made?
Synthetic fuels are made by heating coal in large vessels. These fuels produce fewer air pollutants when burned than burning coal directly. In North Dakota, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant converts coal into synthetic natural gas (syngas). Syngas produced from coal can also be used to produce electricity and hydrogen.
How does coal power work?
Coal-fired power plants burn coal to make steam and the steam turns turbines (machines for generating rotary mechanical power) to generate electricity. Many industries and businesses have their own power plants, and some use coal to generate electricity for their own use and mostly in combined heat and power plants.
When did coal consumption peak?
On an energy content basis, U.S. coal consumption peaked in 2005, but the total annual tonnage of U.S. coal consumption peaked in 2007. Coal consumption declined in most years since then, mainly because of a decline in the use of coal for electricity generation.
What is the main use of coal in the United States?
Although coal use was once common in the industrial, transportation, residential, and commercial sectors, today the main use of coal in the United States is to generate electricity. The electric power sector has accounted for the majority of U.S. coal consumption since 1961.
How much coal will be consumed in 2020?
In 2020, about 477 million short tons (MMst) of coal were consumed in the United States. On an energy content basis, this amount was equal to about 9.2 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) and to about 10% of total U.S. energy consumption.
What industries use coal?
Many industries use coal and coal byproducts. The concrete and paper industries burn large amounts of coal to produce heat. The steel industry uses coal indirectly as coal coke to smelt iron ore into iron to make steel. The high temperatures created by burning coal coke give steel the strength and flexibility needed for bridges, buildings, and automobiles.
Can you use coal to make electricity?
Syngas produced from coal can also be used to produce electricity and hydrogen. Currently, no commercially operating facilities in the United States produce liquids from coal, but coal has been converted to liquids in South Africa for decades. 1 Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review, Table 1.3 and Table 6.2, ...
