Hello. In this module of Energy 101 we're going to talk about the energy conversion. We've talked about the ways that society uses energy and the, and where we get that energy from. We'll talk about why, why society and where society uses it. We'll talk about where the natural forms of that energy comes from, because we can't create energy out of nothing. And now, we're going to talk about energy conversion that converts the energy from the natural forms that we find it, like coal, and natural gas, and nuclear, and oil, and wind, and solar, and hydro, and all biomass, and all the natural forms that we find this energy in. But it doesn't do us any good unless we can convert it from the form that we find it in its natural state to a form the society wants it. So that's where we're, where we're headed on this module. let's break that conversion process down a little bit further. on the left here, we have the, again, the natural forms of energy, that we find them in the natural state. And we have the society uses that we, the he, the, have them, that we want to make like more comfortable. Heat and work and chemical energy, cooling energy for, and electricity. But now let's talk about the energy conversion process to convert those. The devices, the infrastructure, the equipment that's necessary to convert energy from one form to the other are fossil fuel power plants like coal power, power plants, natural gas power plants, nuclear power plants. Nuclear is not fossil, but moving down to nuclear. the auto engine converts gasoline that comes directly from oil. And the diesel engine for, takes diesel fuel that comes directly from oil on essentially a one to one energy basis, and drives a car for transportation which is in the work form. Natural gas furnace heats our homes, air conditioning keeps our homes cool. Pumps pump the water from the wells into our bathrooms and our kitchens, so, and take showers, so we don't have to haul it by, with buckets. the refrigeration system preserves our food so we don't have to shop everyday for fresh food. And then the light bulb converts electricity to light which the electricity of course has to be, is, of course produced from from the power plants. So these are the conversion processes and the equipment. One thing that I'll note here. That we can't just change getting energy from oil, gas or coal for instance to produce heat or electicity that we want in society without changing the equipment that's necessary to make the conversion. And that, that infrastructure is a huge investment, it's a huge economic investment. So that's one of the problems with going to renewables from the, from coal, for instance, or nuclear, is because we have to, to replace the infrastructure that we're currently using to convert coal or natural gas to, the forms of energy we wanted, to a totally new, conversion process requires all new equipment and these, these this is like trillions of dollars in order to do that on a national basis. just one note that we need to be aware of there but these, that conversion process is what we're going to focus on now. the, the conversion process has some natural laws that govern what can be done and what we can't do. And this isn't a science course, and I'm not a scientist, and the philosopher to talk about, why the laws are the way they are. They're natural laws that, the way, the the Earth is made up. gravity pulls down, not up. We don't debate why it doesn't pull up why it pushes down. same way with the natural laws of energy conversion. And those natural laws are divided into 2 primary laws. The first law of energy conversion most, many times called the first law of thermodynamics and the second law which we'll get to in just a minute. So in this module we just want to introduce these concepts but the first law of thermodynamics or the way nature makes us operate is that energy is conserved. As we've already commented we can't create nor destroy energy. Total energy cannot be created or destroyed, and so we can't produce it from nothing. And yet, too many times our intuition tells us, well why can't we get energy from all of the molecules bouncing around in the atmosphere for instance. But it just doesn't allow us to do the that even. but the first law of thermodynamics is, we can only, we cannot produce energy, we can only convert it from one form to the other. that's a major issue, so when we talk about breakthroughs in energy technology. It's merely a breakthrough to convert energy from a new form that we can find it, like solar energy or wind energy, into a form that we want it. we haven't discovered a new form of energy. That wind energy and solar energy was always there. We merely developed the technology and the infrastructure to convert it. trying to give you a little bit of intuition on this. The analogy that our intuition, probably a little more consistent on is total mass cannot be created or destroyed. You can't just annihilate energy, mass, nor can you create mass. We can have a chemical reaction and change one changed mass from one type of form to another. But the total mass, stays the same. You can take two components and react them, but the resulting mass is going to be the sum of the two that you started out with. So that's the first law to thumb dynamics, which makes a little bit of intuitive sense, if we think about it from that's similar to the mass of conservation. The second law of thermodynamics is even less intuitive than the first might be. And, it really says all forms of energy do not have equal value. whereas a kilogram or a pound of mass is equal to another kilogram or pound of mass, they may not have equal value. Well, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or the 2nd law of energy conversion has a similar statement about energy. There, forms of energy have, some have higher value than another form and that's just the way nature has built the universe. And we can't get around it. We've known this for 150 years And there's no, no new discovery. First law of thermodynamics is 150 years old. The second law is about the same. And so we have to operate with those laws of physics. but as an example, work energy or electrical energy has a higher value than Than warm air or hot air energy. You may have an equal amount of energy in each, but they aren't of equal value. Again, taking an analogy from mass, is that even though a pound of gold is equal in mass to a pound of silver They are not of equal value from lot many perspectives. And you can't just change 100% of kilogram of silver and one kilogram of gold.That just doesn't work that way. So, those are the two basic laws that control our energy conversion from the natural form that we want it, that we find it to these forms that society wants it, and we'll delve into those a little deeper in the next two modules. Thank you.
