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Guru
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What are Our Ultimate Energy Sources?

11/05/2007 1:23 PM

Lately I have been thinking about where the energy on the earth ultimately comes from. For the most part I can only come up with three sources.

The first category is incident on the earth, this includes things like solar and cosmic radiation. In this category we have things like wood, alcohol and other fuels or things like wind energy, which are really just storage methods for solar energy.

The second category is energy that is trapped in the earth from its formation, this includes things like radiation, and other elemental chemicals and substances that can be used to react and give off energy.

The third source is gravitational, which comes to us as tides, and additional heating of the earth's core.

I am wondering if I have missed anything here, or if these are our available sources of energy on earth.

Depending on how far you go with your thinking, you may even be able to further reduce these sources to just two or possibly one source being gravitational. As one could make the argument that the sun and stars are just gasses which were trapped by gravity. I don't really want to go that far because I want to focus on the energy available to us on the earth as opposed to how it got there, but you're welcome to have at it.

I find that by thinking that most of what we consider fuel like gasoline is really just an indirect storage method for one these sources is different than what I am used to.

I am looking for additional insight and energy sources I missed, so have at it, as I am interested in what everyone else thinks.

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Guru
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#1

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/05/2007 3:21 PM

Maybe you should divide it into nuclear and gravitational.

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Guru

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#2

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/05/2007 11:23 PM

Did you consider 'energy from the vacuum?

Overunity energy production?

Atmospheric energy?

The Neal Tank Air Compressor?

The Joe Cell?

Newman's Marvelous Magnetic Generator?

The Sun of our Solar system as the ultimate source of all of the energy in, on, or under the surface of the earth.

This includes all of the energy you listed and possibly more.

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Anonymous Poster
#4
In reply to #2

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 3:03 AM

If he didn't, it's probably because they (1,2,4,5,6) don't actually work.

The Sun however, no that's got a fairly impressive track record. Ffej

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Guru

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#3

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 1:55 AM

It all came from the Big Bang and it is all going along the arrow of entropy to total uniformity and Earth is just a brief diversion along the way.

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Guru

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#5

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 4:09 AM

You did mention all the energy ,but not saggregated well , there is basically two types renewable and non renewable , here on you can place your energy sources in these two parts and have further discussion??...........you can scan for previous discussions on CR4 entries on energy and power

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Guru
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#6
In reply to #5

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 9:47 AM

Segregating energy sources as "renewable" and "non-renewable" tells you nothing of the SOURCE of the energy. Most of the so-called "non-renewable" sources are essentially storage media for solar or other sources. The only difference between "renewable" and "non-renewable" are the point at which the energy stream is tapped. Very few people consider the environmental impact of, for instance, solar energy. In Southern California, I have seen a large solar farm for electrical generation- extracting the energy at that point deprives the environment of this energy- i.e., nothing grows under those panels. It is all good and well to install solar panels on existing roofs, but large-scale energy farms are NOT environmentally friendly. Hydro-electric- essentially tapping in to gravitational energy- while destroying large areas of carbon-sink forests, and contributing to the methane load in the atmosphere.

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Guru
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#7
In reply to #6

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 9:49 AM

PS. I am not sure I would separate "trapped" and "gravitational", since they seem to be somewhat inter-related...

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#8

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/06/2007 10:06 AM

I think all you categories could be listed under one source: Matter (and antimatter). If you think about it, without matter you would have no gravitational attraction (reletivity states that gravitational attreaction is caused by spacetime curvature caused by matter) which also means you would not have the terrific pressure needed to sustain nuclear fusion (the source of solar and cosmic radiation) and it goes without saying that matter is the medium which energy is trapped. One must ask themselves, if there was no matter, would there still be energy? Consider these examples:

KE=1/2*MV2

PE=Mg0h

F=G(m1m2)/r2

E=mc2

All of these fundemental equations have a mass variable!

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Guru
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#9
In reply to #8

Re: What are our ultimate energy sources?

11/10/2007 3:55 PM

Good point. Einstein's famous equation E=mcc tells us that matter and energy are inter-convertible. We already accept that this conversion occurs during nuclear reactions. I would argue that electromagnetic "potential energy" and gravitational "potential energy" actually manifest as increased mass (if not, where is the energy stored?). For these two forces, the energies involved are so small that the equivalent masses would extremely small -- too small to measure with existing mass spectrometers. But maybe this hypothesis can be tested in the near future for the case of the electromagnetic force. If this hypothesis is true then energy can be classified as:

(1a) coherent kinetic: macroscopic-sized collections of particles moving together in the same direction (speeding bullets, wind, falling water)

(1b) incoherent kinetic: translational, rotational, and vibrational motion of randomly moving molecules, aka "heat"

(2) radiative: traveling waves/particles of force carriers (gluons, bosons, photons, and gravitons)

(3) mass: stored energy -- not normally though of as "energy", but can be converted into types (1b) or (2) via E=mcc


Or in simpler words: "motion, light, and mass"

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