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The Energy Portal

Welcome to Wikipedia's Energy portal, your gateway to energy. This portal is aimed at giving you access to all energy related topics in all of its forms.

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Introduction

A plasma globe, using electrical energy to create plasma, light, heat, movement and a faint sound

In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia) 'activity') is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed. The unit of measurement for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (J).

Common forms of energy include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object (for instance due to its position in a field), the elastic energy stored in a solid object, chemical energy associated with chemical reactions, the radiant energy carried by electromagnetic radiation, and the internal energy contained within a thermodynamic system. All living organisms constantly take in and release energy.

Due to mass–energy equivalence, any object that has mass when stationary (called rest mass) also has an equivalent amount of energy whose form is called rest energy, and any additional energy (of any form) acquired by the object above that rest energy will increase the object's total mass just as it increases its total energy.

Human civilization requires energy to function, which it gets from energy resources such as fossil fuels, nuclear fuel, or renewable energy. The Earth's climate and ecosystems processes are driven by the energy the planet receives from the Sun (although a small amount is also contributed by geothermal energy). (Full article...)

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The indirect land use change impacts of biofuels, also known as ILUC or iLUC (pronounced as i-luck), relates to the unintended consequence of releasing more carbon emissions due to land-use changes around the world induced by the expansion of croplands for ethanol or biodiesel production in response to the increased global demand for biofuels.

As farmers worldwide respond to higher crop prices in order to maintain the global food supply-and-demand balance, pristine lands are cleared to replace the food crops that were diverted elsewhere to biofuels' production. Because natural lands, such as rainforests and grasslands, store carbon in their soil and biomass as plants grow each year, clearance of wilderness for new farms translates to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Due to this off-site change in the carbon stock of the soil and the biomass, indirect land use change has consequences in the greenhouse gas (GHG) balance of a biofuel. (Full article...)

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Photo credit: NASA
A Saturn V rocket launches Apollo 11, burning 3,580 U.S. gallons (13,552 liters) of kerosene per second.

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Did you know?

The Stuart Shale Oil Plant (pictured) in Australia was in operation only five years?

Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago operates the world's largest LNG train?

Despite projections of producing four times as much power as it used in heating, the Riggatron fusion reactor was never built due to a lack of funding?

In the late 1980s, as many as 50 percent of Argentina's thermal power plants had to be shut down due to lack of maintenance, causing a supply crisis?

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, the largest nuclear power plant in the world, was shut down after being hit by the Chūetsu offshore earthquake in July 2007?

The world's largest surface oil shale pyrolysis reactor is Petrosix, operated by the Brazilian oil company Petrobras?

Russia plans to build several floating nuclear power stations?

Shale gas, a form of natural gas extracted from shale, may also refer to oil shale gas?

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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, FRSE, (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907), widely known for developing the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature measurement, was a mathematical physicist, engineer, and outstanding leader in the physical sciences of the 19th century. He did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form.

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