Sources of Energy
The definition of an energy source is not rigorous. Anything that can provide energy to anything else can qualify. Wood in a stove is full of potential thermal energy; in a car, mechanical energy is acquired from the combustion of gasoline, and the combustion of coal is converted from thermal to mechanical, and then to electrical energy. Examples of energy sources include:
- Fossil fuels
- Nuclear fuels (e.g., uranium and plutonium)
- Radiation from the sun
- Mechanical energy from wind, rivers, tides, etc.
- Bio-fuels derived from biomass, in turn having consumed soil nutrients during growth.
- Heat from within the earth (geothermal radiation)
The term net energy gain can be used in slightly different ways:
Read more about this topic: Net Energy Gain
Famous quotes containing the words sources of, sources and/or energy:
“The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn’t got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and keep a vigilant eye on many sources of error.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and stern dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)