Energy Resources

Energy Resources

What is Energy?

Energy is the ability to do work.

Forms of Energy:

Energy can be found in a number of different forms. It can be;

1. Chemical Energy,

2. Electrical Energy,

3. Heat (Thermal Energy),

4. Light (Radiant Energy),

5. Mechanical Energy,

6. Nuclear Energy.

7. Wind Energy.

8. Ocean Energy (Tidal, Wave and OCT)

9. Gee Thermal Energy

10. Biomass Energy.

11. Fossil Fuel Energy

12. Hydro Thermal Energy

13. etc.

Types of Energy:

Energy makes everything happen and can be divided into two types:

• Stored Energy is called Potential Energy.

• Moving Energy is called Kinetic Energy.

How Do We Measure Energy?

Energy is measured in many ways, which include:

1. Btu: Stands for British thermal unit

п‚o Btu is the amount of heat energy it takes to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit, at sea level.

п‚o One Btu equals about one blue-tip kitchen match.

2. Joules The term "joule" is named after an English scientist James Prescott Joule who lived from 1818 to 1889. He discovered that heat is a type of energy.

п‚o One joule is the amount of energy needed to lift something weighing one pound to a height of nine inches.

п‚o So, if you lifted a five-pound sack of sugar from the floor to the top of a counter (27 inches), you would use about 15 joules of energy.

1 Btu = 1,000 joules = 1 kilojoule

Changing Energy:

пЃ" Energy can be transformed into another sort of energy.

пЃ" But it cannot be created AND it cannot be destroyed.

пЃ" Energy has always existed in one form or another.

Here are some changes in energy from one form to another.

пЃ' Stored energy in a flashlight's batteries becomes light energy when the flashlight is turned on.

пЃ' Food is stored energy. It is stored as a chemical with potential energy. When your body uses that stored energy to do work, it becomes kinetic energy.

пЃ' When you talk on the phone, your voice is transformed into electrical energy, which passes over wires (or is transmitted through the air). The phone on the other end changes the electrical energy into sound energy through the speaker.

пЃ' A car uses stored chemical energy in gasoline to move. The engine changes the chemical energy into heat and kinetic energy to power the car.

пЃ' A toaster changes electrical energy into heat and light energy. (If you look into the toaster, you'll see the glowing wires.)

пЃ' A television changes electrical energy into light and sound energy.

HEAT ENERGY

Heat is a form of energy. We use it for a lot of things, like warming our homes and cooking our food.

Heat energy moves in three ways:

1. Conduction

2. Convection

3. Radiation } Dosen’t Requir any Medium to Move

1. Conduction: Takes place in solids

п‚Ñž Metals are excellent conductors of heat energy.

п‚Ñž Wood or plastics are not.

п‚Ñž These "bad" conductors are called insulators.

п‚Ñž That's why a pan is usually made of metal while the handle is made of a strong plastic.

2. Convection: It takes place in gases and liquids

п‚Ñž It is the movement of gases or liquids from a cooler spot to a warmer spot.

3. Radiation is the final form of movement of heat energy.

п‚Ñž The sun's light and heat cannot reach us by conduction or convection because space is almost completely empty. There is nothing to transfer the energy from the sun to the earth.

п‚Ñž The sun's rays travel in straight lines called heat rays. When it moves that way, it is called radiation.

п‚Ñž When sunlight hits the earth, its radiation is absorbed or reflected.

п‚Ñž Darker surfaces absorb more of the radiation and lighter surfaces reflect the radiation.

п‚Ñž So you would be cooler if you wear light or white clothes in the summer.

FOSSIL FUELS

п‚Ñž Fossils are the dead remains of animals and plants and these were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the dinosaurs - hence the name fossil fuels.

п‚Ñž The age they were formed is called the Carboniferous Period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era. "Carboniferous" gets its name from carbon, the basic element in coal and other fossil fuels.

п‚Ñž There are three major forms of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas.

How fossil Fuels were formed?

п‚Ñž The Carboniferous Period occurred from about 360 to 286 million years ago.

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