Energy and Types of Energy

ENERGY

Energy is the capacity for doing work, generating heat, and emitting light. The equation for work is the force, which is the mass time the gravity times the distance.

Heat is the ability to change the temperature of an object or phase of a substance. For example, heat changes a solid into a liquid or a liquid into a vapor. Heat is part of the definition of energy.

Another part of the definition of energy is radiation, which is the light and energy emitted in the form of waves traveling at the speed of light.

Energy is measured in units of calorie, quad, and joule. A kilocalorie is the amount of energy or heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water from 14.5?C to 15.5?C. The quad unit is used to measure energy needed for big countries. The final measurement of energy is joules.

Energy is an essential input for economic development and improving quality of life. India?s per capita consumption of Commercial Energy (viz., coal, petroleum and electricity) is only one-eighth of the Global Average and will increase with growth in Gross Domestic Production (GDP) and improve-ment in standard of living.

Commercial Energy accounts for a little over half of the total energy used in the Country, the rest coming from non-commercial resources like cow-dung, fuel wood and agricultural waste. Though the share of these non-commercial sources has been coming down, consumption has increased almost dou-ble since 1953.

These renewable, non-commercial sources have been used extensively for hundreds of years but in a primitive and ineffective way. Indiscriminate use of non-commercial energy sources is leading to an energy crisis in the rural areas. Seventh Plan laid emphasis on the development and accelerated utilisa-tion of renewable energy sources in rural and urban areas. A major Policy of the Government is directed towards increasing the use of coal in household and of electricity in transport sector in order to reduce dependence on oil, which is becoming scarce gradually.

The Government has formulated an energy policy with objectives of ensuring adequate energy supply at minimum cost, achieving self-sufficiency in energy supplies and protecting environment from adverse impact of utilising energy resources in an injudicious manner. Main elements of the policy are:

1.     Accelerated exploitation of domestic conventional energy resources-oil, coal, hydro and nu-clear power;

2.     Intensification of exploration to increase indigenous production of oil and gas;

3.     Management of demand for oil and other forms of energy;

4.     Energy conservation and management;

5.     Optimisation of utilisation of existing capacity in the country;

6.     Development and exploitation of renewable sources of energy to meet energy requirements of rural communities;

7.     Intensification of research and development activities in new and renewable energy sources; and

8.     Organisation of training far personnel engaged at various levels in the energy sector.

Development of conventional forms of energy for meeting the growing energy needs of the society at a reasonable cost is the responsibility of Government viz., Department of Power, Coal and Petroleum and Natural Gas. Development and promotion of non-conventional/alternate/new and renew-able sources of energy such as Solar, Wind and Bio-energy, etc., are also getting sustained attention from the Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources created in September, 1982. Nuclear Energy De-velopment is being geared up by the Department of Atomic Energy to contribute significantly to overall energy availability in the Country.

Energy Conservation is being given the highest-priority and is being used as a tool to bridge the gaps between demand and supply of energy. An autonomous body, namely Energy Management Centre, has been set up on ten April, 1989, as a nodal agency for energy conservation projects.

TYPES OF ENERGY

There are various types of energy which, they include nuclear, electrical, thermal, chemical, and radiant energy. In addition, gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy that combines to produce mechanical energy.

Nuclear energy produces heat by fission on nuclei, which is generated by heat engines. Nuclear energy is the world?s largest source of emission-free energy. There are two processes in Nuclear energy fission and fusion. In fission, the nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms are split with the release of energy. In fusion, energy is released when small nuclei combine or fuse. The fission process is used in all present nuclear power plants, because fusion cannot be controlled. Nuclear energy is used to heat steam engines. A Nuclear power plant is a steam engine using uranium as its fuel, and it suffers from low efficiency.

Electricity powers most factories and homes in our world. Some things like flashlights and Game Boys use electricity that is stored in batteries as chemical energy. Other items use electricity that comes from an electrical plug in a wall socket. Electricity is the conduction or transfer of energy from one place to another. The electricity is the flow of energy. Atoms have electrons circling then, some being loosely attached. When electrons move among the atoms of matter, a current of electricity is created.

Thermal energy is kinetic and potential energy, but it is associated with the random motion of atoms in an object. The kinetic and potential energy associated with this random microscopic motion is called thermal energy. A great amount of thermal energy (heat) is stored in the world?s oceans. Each day, the oceans absorb enough heat from the sun to equal the energy contained in 250 billion barrels of oil (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Systems).

Chemical energy is a form of energy that comes from chemical reactions, in which the chemical reaction is a process of oxidation. Potential energy is released when a chemical reaction occurs, which is called chemical energy. A car battery is a good example, because the chemical reaction produces voltage and current to start the car. When a plant goes through a process of photosynthesis, what the plant is left with more chemical energy than the water and carbon dioxide. Chemical energy is used in science labs to make medicine and to product power from gas.

Radiant energy exists in a range of wavelengths that extends from radio waves that many be thousands of meters long to gamma rays with wavelengths as short as a million-millionth (10^{? 12}) of a meter. Radiant energy is converted to chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis.

The next two types of energy go hand and hand, gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. The term energy is motivated by the fact that potential energy and kinetic energy are different aspects of the same thing, mechanical energy.

Potential energy exists whenever an object which has mass has a position within a force field. The potential energy of an object in this case is given by the relation PE = mgh, where PE is energy in joules, m is the mass of the object, g is the gravitational acceleration, and h is the height of the object goes.

Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. An object in motion, whether it be vertical or horizontal motion, has kinetic energy. There are different forms of kinetic energy vibrational, which is the energy due to vibrational motion, rotational, which is the energy due to rotational motion, and transnational, which is the energy due to motion from one location to the other. The equation for kinetic energy is ? mv², where m is the mass and v is the velocity. This equation shows that the kinetic energy of an object is directly proportional to the square of its speed.