Portal:Energy

Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Nature · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology

The Energy Portal

Welcome to Wikipedia's energy portal, your gateway to the subject of energy and its influence on the world around us.

Main page Explore topics & categories Tasks & announcements

Page contents: Introduction• Energy news• Selected article• Selected picture• Selected biography• Did you know?• Quotations• Related portals• Wikiprojects• Associated Wikimedia• Help

edit watch

Introduction

Energy is most often used in the context of energy resources, their development, consumption, depletion, and conservation. Since economic activities such as manufacturing and transportation can be energy intensive, energy efficiency, energy dependence, energy security and price are key concerns. Increased awareness of the effects of global warming has led to international debate and action for the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions.

In the context of natural science, energy can take several different forms: thermal, chemical, electrical, radiant, nuclear etc. These are often grouped as being either kinetic energy or potential energy. Many of these forms can be readily transformed into another with the help of a device; from chemical energy to electrical energy using a battery, for example.

The concepts of energy and its transformations are useful in explaining natural processes. Meteorological phenomena like wind, rain, lightning and tornadoes all result from energy transformations brought about by solar energy on the planet. Life itself is critically dependent on biological energy transformations; organic chemical bonds are constantly broken and made to make the exchange and transformation of energy possible. Read more...

Refresh page contents
edit watch

Selected article

According to Hubbert peak theory, peak oil is the date when the peak of the world's production of conventional petroleum (crude oil) is reached. After this date the rate of production is forecast to enter terminal decline, following the bell-shaped curve predicted by the theory. Due to the world's high dependence on inexpensive oil, it is thought that severe price increases may result, with serious implications for the global economy.

Acceptance of peak oil is far from universal, and the only reliable way to identify its existence will be in retrospect. One alternative scenario is that global production will eventually follow an 'undulating plateau' for one or more decades before declining slowly.

Having accurately predicted the date of peak production in the US petroleum industry, which occurred in 1970, M. King Hubbert, who devised the theory, forecast that the world peak would occur in 1995 'if current trends continue'. Various subsequent predictions have been made as trends have fluctuated in the intervening years. Two milestones have passed, however. The peak of world oilfield discoveries occurred in 1965 and, due world population growth, production per capita peaked in 1979.

The effects of peak oil could be mitigated through conservation and switching to alternative fuels or non-conventional oil sources. Such changes would bring their own challenges, ranging from the need to development alternative technologies to potential increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Read more...

Archives...Nominate an article...

edit watch

Selected picture

Photo credit: United States Air Force
The IPCC estimates that aviation will account for 4% of all carbon emissions released by human activity by 2050.

Archives...Nominate a picture...

edit watch

Did you know?

According to research by the IPCC, government funding for most energy research programmes has been flat or declining for nearly 20 years, and is now about half the 1980 level?

Renewable energy in Iceland provides over 70% of the country's primary energy needs, and 99.9% of Iceland's electricity?

The Rance tidal power plant in France was the world's 1st electrical generating station powered by tidal energy?

A tropical cyclone can release heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 trillion joules per day, roughly 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity per day?

Ordinary fossil fuel power plants convert between 36% and 48% of the fuel's energy into electricity, with the remainder being lost as waste heat?

Burning biomass indoors leads to between 1.5 and 2 million deaths each year from indoor air pollution in developing nations?

Over 50% of world small hydroelectricity generating capacity is in China?

Charles Fritts developed the first solar cell in 1884, although its efficiency was less than 1%?

Archives...Nominate a fact...

edit watch

Selected biography

James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist. His most significant achievement was formulating a set of equations – eponymously named Maxwell's equations – that for the first time expressed the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in a unified fashion. Maxwell's contributions to physics are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

Maxwell studied natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and mental philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, before graduating in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where he would conduct much of his career. He built on Michael Faraday's work on magnetic induction, using elements of geometry and algebra Maxwell to demonstrate that electric and magnetic fields travel through space, in the form of waves, and at the constant speed of light. Finally, in 1861, Maxwell proposed that light consisted of undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. In the same year he was elected to the Royal Society.

In 1864, Maxwell presented what are now known as Maxwell's equations to the Royal Society. These collectively describe the behaviour of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter. Read more...

Archives...Nominate a biography...

edit watch

Energy news

May 28, 2008: Indonesia announced decision to quit OPEC.
May 27, 2008: An unplanned shutdown at Sizewell B nuclear power station causes power outages in London.
May 18, 2008: The annual Greasestock festival was held in Yorktown, New York, showcasing alternative fuel vehicles.
May 13, 2008: Australia elected to limit solar rebates to those with an income of less than AU$100,000, estimated to cause reduction of solar installations by 60%.
March 31, 2008: The United States appoints a Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy.
March 7, 2008: Construction of the Medgaz pipeline between Algeria and Spain is started.
February 25, 2008: Teesside Power Station, the largest CCGT plant in Europe was acquired jointly by Gaz de France and Suez.
February 25, 2008: Hungary agreed to join the controversial South Stream gas pipeline project.

Archives...Nominate a story...

edit watch

Quotations

"Without radical international measures to reduce carbon emissions within the next 10 to 15 years, there is compelling evidence to suggest we might lose the chance to control temperature rises. Failure to act will make an increase of between 2 and 5 degrees [3.6 - 9°F] in average temperatures almost inevitable." – Tony Blair, 2006
"The question is not whether climate change is happening or not, but whether, in the face of this emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough." – Kofi Annan, 2006
"I promise you a day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and they will ask one of two questions. Either they will ask, 'What in God's name were they doing? Didn't they see the evidence?' Or, they may look back and say 'How did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy?'" – Al Gore, 2007, on global warming.