1 00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:03,603 Hello. In this module of Energy 101 we're 2 00:00:03,603 --> 00:00:07,144 going to talk about the energy conversion. 3 00:00:07,144 --> 00:00:13,880 We've talked about the ways that society uses energy and the, and where we get 4 00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:18,734 that energy from. We'll talk about why, why society and 5 00:00:18,734 --> 00:00:24,281 where society uses it. We'll talk about where the natural forms 6 00:00:24,281 --> 00:00:29,408 of that energy comes from, because we can't create energy out of 7 00:00:29,408 --> 00:00:33,085 nothing. And now, we're going to talk about energy 8 00:00:33,085 --> 00:00:38,887 conversion that converts the energy from the natural forms that we find it, like 9 00:00:38,887 --> 00:00:44,770 coal, and natural gas, and nuclear, and oil, and wind, and solar, and hydro, and 10 00:00:44,770 --> 00:00:50,755 all biomass, and all the natural forms that we find this energy in. 11 00:00:50,755 --> 00:00:57,733 But it doesn't do us any good unless we can convert it from the form that we find 12 00:00:57,733 --> 00:01:02,532 it in its natural state to a form the society wants it. 13 00:01:02,532 --> 00:01:07,632 So that's where we're, where we're headed on this module. 14 00:01:07,632 --> 00:01:13,557 let's break that conversion process down a little bit further. 15 00:01:13,557 --> 00:01:19,732 on the left here, we have the, again, the natural forms of energy, 16 00:01:19,732 --> 00:01:27,037 that we find them in the natural state. And we have the society uses that we, the 17 00:01:27,037 --> 00:01:31,753 he, the, have them, that we want to make like more comfortable. 18 00:01:31,753 --> 00:01:37,166 Heat and work and chemical energy, cooling energy for, and electricity. 19 00:01:37,166 --> 00:01:42,972 But now let's talk about the energy conversion process to convert those. 20 00:01:42,972 --> 00:01:47,892 The devices, the infrastructure, the equipment that's necessary to convert 21 00:01:47,892 --> 00:01:52,842 energy from one form to the other are fossil fuel power plants like coal power, 22 00:01:52,842 --> 00:01:56,852 power plants, natural gas power plants, nuclear power plants. 23 00:01:56,852 --> 00:02:00,622 Nuclear is not fossil, but moving down to nuclear. 24 00:02:00,622 --> 00:02:05,898 the auto engine converts gasoline that comes directly from oil. 25 00:02:05,898 --> 00:02:11,124 And the diesel engine for, takes diesel fuel that comes directly from oil on 26 00:02:11,124 --> 00:02:17,227 essentially a one to one energy basis, and drives a car for transportation which 27 00:02:17,227 --> 00:02:21,677 is in the work form. Natural gas furnace heats our homes, air 28 00:02:21,677 --> 00:02:27,111 conditioning keeps our homes cool. Pumps pump the water from the wells into 29 00:02:27,111 --> 00:02:32,767 our bathrooms and our kitchens, so, and take showers, so we don't have to haul it 30 00:02:32,767 --> 00:02:36,354 by, with buckets. the refrigeration system preserves our 31 00:02:36,354 --> 00:02:39,778 food so we don't have to shop everyday for fresh food. 32 00:02:39,778 --> 00:02:43,816 And then the light bulb converts electricity to light which the 33 00:02:43,816 --> 00:02:48,881 electricity of course has to be, is, of course produced from from the power 34 00:02:48,881 --> 00:02:52,088 plants. So these are the conversion processes and 35 00:02:52,088 --> 00:02:55,102 the equipment. One thing that I'll note here. 36 00:02:55,102 --> 00:03:03,391 That we can't just change getting energy from oil, gas or coal for instance to 37 00:03:03,391 --> 00:03:12,422 produce heat or electicity that we want in society without changing the equipment 38 00:03:12,422 --> 00:03:18,781 that's necessary to make the conversion. And that, that infrastructure is a huge 39 00:03:18,781 --> 00:03:22,413 investment, it's a huge economic investment. 40 00:03:22,413 --> 00:03:29,224 So that's one of the problems with going to renewables from the, from coal, for 41 00:03:29,224 --> 00:03:34,669 instance, or nuclear, is because we have to, to replace the infrastructure that 42 00:03:34,669 --> 00:03:40,423 we're currently using to convert coal or natural gas to, the forms of energy we 43 00:03:40,423 --> 00:03:46,298 wanted, to a totally new, conversion process requires all new equipment and 44 00:03:46,298 --> 00:03:51,988 these, these this is like trillions of dollars in order to do that on a national 45 00:03:51,988 --> 00:03:55,659 basis. just one note that we need to be aware of 46 00:03:55,659 --> 00:04:01,536 there but these, that conversion process is what we're going to focus on now. 47 00:04:01,536 --> 00:04:07,737 the, the conversion process has some natural laws that govern what can be done 48 00:04:07,737 --> 00:04:13,112 and what we can't do. And this isn't a science course, and I'm not a scientist, 49 00:04:13,112 --> 00:04:18,687 and the philosopher to talk about, why the laws are the way they are. They're 50 00:04:18,687 --> 00:04:22,722 natural laws that, the way, the the Earth is made up. 51 00:04:22,722 --> 00:04:28,117 gravity pulls down, not up. We don't debate why it doesn't pull up 52 00:04:28,117 --> 00:04:32,756 why it pushes down. same way with the natural laws of energy 53 00:04:32,756 --> 00:04:36,696 conversion. And those natural laws are divided into 2 54 00:04:36,696 --> 00:04:40,794 primary laws. The first law of energy conversion most, 55 00:04:40,794 --> 00:04:46,017 many times called the first law of thermodynamics and the second law which 56 00:04:46,017 --> 00:04:50,654 we'll get to in just a minute. So in this module we just want to 57 00:04:50,654 --> 00:04:56,193 introduce these concepts but the first law of thermodynamics or the way nature 58 00:04:56,193 --> 00:04:59,420 makes us operate is that energy is conserved. 59 00:04:59,420 --> 00:05:04,146 As we've already commented we can't create nor destroy energy. 60 00:05:04,146 --> 00:05:08,803 Total energy cannot be created or destroyed, and so we can't produce it 61 00:05:08,803 --> 00:05:12,217 from nothing. And yet, too many times our intuition 62 00:05:12,217 --> 00:05:17,435 tells us, well why can't we get energy from all of the molecules bouncing around 63 00:05:17,435 --> 00:05:23,007 in the atmosphere for instance. But it just doesn't allow us to do the 64 00:05:23,007 --> 00:05:26,482 that even. but the first law of thermodynamics is, 65 00:05:26,482 --> 00:05:31,577 we can only, we cannot produce energy, we can only convert it from one form to the 66 00:05:31,577 --> 00:05:34,632 other. that's a major issue, so when we talk 67 00:05:34,632 --> 00:05:40,028 about breakthroughs in energy technology. It's merely a breakthrough to convert 68 00:05:40,028 --> 00:05:45,004 energy from a new form that we can find it, like solar energy or wind energy, 69 00:05:45,004 --> 00:05:49,371 into a form that we want it. we haven't discovered a new form of 70 00:05:49,371 --> 00:05:52,370 energy. That wind energy and solar energy was 71 00:05:52,370 --> 00:05:57,342 always there. We merely developed the technology and the infrastructure to 72 00:05:57,342 --> 00:06:00,587 convert it. trying to give you a little bit of 73 00:06:00,587 --> 00:06:04,899 intuition on this. The analogy that our intuition, probably 74 00:06:04,899 --> 00:06:10,642 a little more consistent on is total mass cannot be created or destroyed. 75 00:06:10,642 --> 00:06:15,441 You can't just annihilate energy, mass, nor can you create mass. 76 00:06:15,441 --> 00:06:21,469 We can have a chemical reaction and change one changed mass from one type of 77 00:06:21,469 --> 00:06:25,277 form to another. But the total mass, stays the same. 78 00:06:25,277 --> 00:06:31,154 You can take two components and react them, but the resulting mass is going to 79 00:06:31,154 --> 00:06:34,345 be the sum of the two that you started out with. 80 00:06:34,345 --> 00:06:39,923 So that's the first law to thumb dynamics, which makes a little bit of 81 00:06:39,923 --> 00:06:45,274 intuitive sense, if we think about it from that's similar to the mass of 82 00:06:45,274 --> 00:06:50,058 conservation. The second law of thermodynamics is even 83 00:06:50,058 --> 00:06:56,788 less intuitive than the first might be. And, it really says all forms of energy 84 00:06:56,788 --> 00:07:03,230 do not have equal value. whereas a kilogram or a pound of mass is 85 00:07:03,230 --> 00:07:09,642 equal to another kilogram or pound of mass, they may not have equal value. 86 00:07:09,642 --> 00:07:15,635 Well, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or the 2nd law of energy conversion has a 87 00:07:15,635 --> 00:07:21,205 similar statement about energy. There, forms of energy have, some have 88 00:07:21,205 --> 00:07:26,949 higher value than another form and that's just the way nature has built the 89 00:07:26,949 --> 00:07:29,871 universe. And we can't get around it. 90 00:07:29,871 --> 00:07:34,620 We've known this for 150 years And there's no, no new discovery. 91 00:07:34,620 --> 00:07:37,543 First law of thermodynamics is 150 years old. 92 00:07:37,543 --> 00:07:42,228 The second law is about the same. And so we have to operate with those laws 93 00:07:42,228 --> 00:07:45,393 of physics. but as an example, work energy or 94 00:07:45,393 --> 00:07:50,356 electrical energy has a higher value than Than warm air or hot air energy. 95 00:07:50,356 --> 00:07:56,149 You may have an equal amount of energy in each, but they aren't of equal value. 96 00:07:56,149 --> 00:08:01,734 Again, taking an analogy from mass, is that even though a pound of gold is equal 97 00:08:01,734 --> 00:08:07,032 in mass to a pound of silver They are not of equal value from lot many 98 00:08:07,032 --> 00:08:11,057 perspectives. And you can't just change 100% of 99 00:08:11,057 --> 00:08:17,487 kilogram of silver and one kilogram of gold.That just doesn't work that way. 100 00:08:17,487 --> 00:08:23,847 So, those are the two basic laws that control our energy conversion from the 101 00:08:23,847 --> 00:08:29,986 natural form that we want it, that we find it to these forms that society wants 102 00:08:29,986 --> 00:08:34,678 it, and we'll delve into those a little deeper in the next two modules. 103 00:08:34,678 --> 00:08:35,308 Thank you.