Introduction to Potential Energy Chemistry

Introduction to Potential Energy ChemistryEnergy chemistry is the science that deals with the natural laws that govern how an object, and in turn our homes, use energy. At first glance this may seem like a very big subject, but it really is not. Most homes in the United States have appliances and devices in them that use energy.Natural resources like electricity, water, and fossil fuels are provided to homes as part of our national infrastructure. The power plants, water treatment facilities, and transportation hubs that provide the electricity in our homes are required by law to use clean energy. They must also produce it at low enough levels so that they will be able to meet the energy requirements of the homes that use them.So, what is the main point? Energy that we can use in our homes is produced by the use of these sources, and the way we use it or how much we use it will affect the rate at which it is burned.This is where things become more complex than this, but for now you m ay just want to think of it as the basics of natural properties of energy. There are four main types of energy. These are thermal, mechanical, electrical, and gravitational. You might have heard of thermal energy, but that is not the whole story.Thermal energy is also called 'kinetic' energy, and it is used in heating water and air, creating heat. It is not available to us in all areas, so it must be 'converted' from one form to another. Conventional methods of conversion are solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric.The most efficient uses of this kind of energy are in your home, since it does not involve any machinery. It is used mostly to heat water and air. We can also use it to light our homes, and we usesome it to power electronic devices. All these forms are more or less the same thing.All of these kinds of heat are different, and we will look at the two of the most common in a moment. Each has a heat source, a process by which the heat is created, and a way to disperse it. One of the ways it is dispersed is in a chemical process called radiation, which can be measured in watts per square meter.The first form of energy is called the 'thermal', which has two components - the heat source, and electric resistance. In this process the heat is transferred directly from the source (the cold part of the item) to the surface of the item.