Expert: Sue Kayton Date: 2/17/2008 Subject: sunlight energy
Question QUESTION: 1. What supplies the most energy used on earth? is it sunlight?
2. What substance reacts when burning occurs?
3. what is energy changing from one form to another by burning?
ANSWER: 1. Almost all the energy on earth comes directly from sunlight or indirectly from sunlight. When we burn gasoline, the gasoline was refined from oil that was pumped out of the ground. The oil was formed millions of years ago when plants rotted. The plants got their energy from sunlight. A tiny percentage of our energy comes from the decay of radioactive elements in the earth's crust and from the residual heat of the molten core of the Earth.
2. When you burn wood, cellulose makes up most of the wood. The cellulose reacts with oxygen. When you burn gasoline, the octane (carbon chains) in the gasoline react with oxygen. So the answer here is oxygen reacts with whatever you are burning.
3. This is a meaningless question. What are you trying to ask?
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: what is an example of energy changing from one form to another by burning?
is it wood burning and then turning to ash the energy being heat? i'm trying to write a report.
Answer When you burn wood, you start with chemical energy. When the wood burns, it releases heat (thermal energy) and light (light energy) and leaves behind ash (matter). So you are turning matter that contains ONE kind of energy into TWO different kinds of energy, with some leftover matter.
A light bulb turns electric energy into light energy.
