According to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics energy changes form and moves from place to place, but the total amount does not change. Therefore, you would think that if the total amount never changes we would never have to worry about conserving energy. Unfortunately, when we use up energy only a small amount of reusable energy is created in the process. Most cars only give out about 40% or less useful energy and the old steam locomotives barely got 5 or 6 useful work out of 100 units of wood or coal energy. If you take a look at the picture, you will notice only 41% of useful energy leaves the engine. Engineers are supposedly trying to come up with a more efficient engine that will convert more energy into work rather than waste heat.
Therefore, it is possible to reuse energy. We need to come up with a way of creating more useable energy from the energy we use up from day to day. By increasing the output of energy in the form of work rather than heat energy, we will have more reusable energy.
NIce blog, I like the visual you used. I also like you explanation on how yes, even though energy does not disappear, not all of it is actually reusable. I really did not know this before this class (I know, that is bad, right?).
ReplyDeleteVery interesting!
@Kaelyn, you're not the only one that didn't know it before class. I probably heard it before, but never really payed any attention to it.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you put the photo up in your post, it's interesting to see what the engine does. I really hope they find a way to increase the output of reusable energy.
Don't confuse reusing energy with being more efficient. Once the energy is lost as heat, we cannot recapture and use it. We can become more efficient about the way we spend it the first time around.
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