Portal:Energy
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The Energy Portal
Energy is a property of objects and systems of objects to act against a force (to do work), explored in branches of physics such as thermodynamics. Popularly the term is most often used in the context of energy as a public technology: energy resources, their consumption, development, depletion, and conservation. Biologically, bodies rely on food for energy in the same sense as industry relies on fuels to continue functioning. 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 global debate and action for the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions; like many previous energy use patterns, it is changing not due to depletion or supply constraints but due to problems with waste, extraction, or geopolitical scenarios. First, somehow there is a movement. There happened to be a burst of motion first. Motion implies and embraces energy, includes energy in itself. That first movement is a systematic one. The energy is the “ability of that system to perform work.” After that first movement we have the energy to play with. The universe is the result of the work systematically performed by that burst of motion. Motion can be transferred, transformed and converted into different forms. Whenever we see or sense a work done that means a visible energy. From here on radiation of energy, electromagnetic radiation and so on is easy to follow. 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. Most energy available for human use ultimately comes from the sun, which generates it with nuclear fusion. The enormous potential for fusion and other basic nuclear reactions is expressed by the equation E = mc2. The concepts of energy and its transformations are useful in explaining natural processes on larger scales: 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... High-level radioactive waste management concerns management and disposal of highly radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power and nuclear warheads. The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to living organisms. Of particular concern are two long-lived fission products, Technetium-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and Iodine-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent nuclear fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years. The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are Neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and Plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years). Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to successfully isolate it from the biosphere. This usually necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form. Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, usually involving deep-geologic placement, although there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions. This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years, according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses. Read more...  Photo credit: Diliff
Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani (born 1930) was Saudi Arabia's Minister of Oil (Petroleum) and Mineral Resources from 1962 until 1986, and a minister in OPEC for 25 years. He is best known for his role in the 1973 oil crisis, when OPEC quadrupled the price of crude oil. Yamani gained a degree from Harvard Law School and a master's in Comparative Jurisprudence from New York University. After working in the Saudi Ministry of Finance, in 1958 be became a legal advisor to Faisal, then Crown Prince and Prime Minister, until Faisal's resignation in 1960. After Faisal's return to government, in 1962 Yamani replaced Abdallah Tariki as Oil Minister, playing an important role in the development of OPEC. During the 1967 Arab–Israeli War Yamani spoke against the use of an Arab oil embargo. The following year he lead the founding of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. When Arab–Israeli hostilities resumed with the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the pressure to join the other Arab states, who wished to use oil to change the apparent pro-Israeli policy of the United States government, was irresistible. Yamani's proposal of increasing monthly cuts in production was accepted and, together with a later embargo against the US and the Netherlands and a quadrupling of the oil price, severely affected the economies of all western nations. Despite this, by resisting more extreme proposals Yamani became increasingly seen as pro-American in the Arab world. Read more...
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