• Question: Is there a such thing as 'raw' energy?

    Asked by mongoose to Akram, Gill, Jack, laurenceharwood on 21 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jack Snape

      Jack Snape answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      Very interesting question 🙂 I think the answer is no… but there are different levels of usefulness depending on how concentrated the form of energy is or how efficiently it can be used. Nuclear energy is very useful because there is a lot of energy in a very small space. Things like the heat escaping from our buildings and our bodies is not that useful because the energy is very spread out and you would have to use energy trying to collect all that energy together to make it useful again… the sums probably wouldn’t add up.

      Hope that answers your question 🙂

    • Photo: Gill Menzies

      Gill Menzies answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      I’s agree with Jack. The closest thing I can think of to raw energy would be the food that you eat. As you break down food for your body to metabolise the neutrients in your body react with oxygen and release energy. Your body can store energy in the form of fat for use later perhaps when there is less food available (famine). Some foods are better at converting to available energy than others. Sugars convert very quickly to energy and give you a kick or a buzz, but later give you a bad energy slump that make you feel terrible. Slow burn carbohydrates like oats stabilise your body energy levels and allow you to keep going longer. Science and energy impact lots of areas of our lives – I find sports science fascinating 🙂

    • Photo: Akram Alomainy

      Akram Alomainy answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      Hmmmm … Interesting and quite clever!

      Well the question is what is the definition of raw … Raw food could be an exmaple but the energy it produces is not raw but combinations and various forms … heat and other form of energy are not found in its raw format because they have transfer from one to another!!

      When we talk about raw files for images we are talking about all the 0s and 1s that makes up the image but in Energy we don’t know that origin since we cannot create it or destroy it 🙂

      I am sure the answer created more questions … sorry about not being straightforward but I find it interesting to be debated 🙂

    • Photo: Laurence Harwood

      Laurence Harwood answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      “Raw” energy is a term we use to describe someone or something giving out an impression of being very powerful – it is a figure of speach. Energy can be generated in different ways but all energy comes in two fundamental states – kinetic energy (where something is moving, vibrating and spinning very rapidly) and potential energy (where the energy is stored, for example in a high energy bond or teh nucleus of an atom) to be released at a later stage.

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