Energy Engineering and Powering the Future

Energy Engineering and Powering the Future — page 3
WORKING WITH ENERGY Even though we see and interact with energy every day when cooking traveling and watching television we cannot create energy Instead energy is converted from one form to another form For example electrical energy is converted into heat in an oven or sound and light The Sun warms Earth in a television Energy engineers design solutions for unevenly which causes the wind converting forms of energy into the electricity we use to blow Energy engineers use wind turbines to convert this But where does the energy they work with come from wind energy into electricity Energy flow Most of the energy available to us originates from the Sun For example plants absorb solar energy so that they can grow Fossil fuels such as coal and oil are the ancient remains of plants and other life forms They still store energy that originally came from the Sun millions of years ago When industries bun fossil fuels this chemical energy is released as thermal heat energy Energy engineers can use thermal energy in devices called engines In an engine some form of energy often thermal is used to make a shaft rotate This rotation is a form of mechanical energy which is a combination of potential energy and kinetic energy Mechanical energy can be used in different ways such as to power a car By connecting an engine s rotating shaft to a generator mechanical energy can also be turned into electrical energy In physics we call the process of transferring energy work The rate at which work is performed or in this case at which electrical energy is converted from mechanical energy is called power