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THIS Principle is very useful as it keeps us mindful in our daily lives of the awesome and bounteous nature of energy:

  Energy is constantly being transformed i.e. changing from one form to another.

Energy comes in many forms, providing us with a wide range of options for its use.

Some forms of energy are very useful to us and we are wise to conserve them.

With every dawn we are reminded of this bounty as the sun's rays are transformed into a myriad forms of energy.

When ‘high frequency’ energy waves from the sun strike matter they are transformed into ’low frequency’ energy waves .  These transformations enable and protect life on Earth’s surface.  See Sun, Air and Life.

 Note - The higher the frequency of a wave the more energy it contains. There is less distance between each wave and each wave comes more often.

With every dawn we also awake to a world in which the language of energy is used and confused for marketing purposes. We all know that energy is vital to our lives and many agencies attempt to capitalise on this fact. They invest much to generate public focus and commitment to the particular energy forms and fuels they have a vested interest in by describing them as 'energy'. See also Fuels, Air and Energy.

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Being mindful of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy makes sense of Science and releases us into a world rich with possible energy transformations.

This page is part of a programme  Communicating and Teaching the scientific principles underlying Climate Change issues.

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 'Electricity is energy’. Electricity is just one of many energy forms.

 'Energy crisis', ‘Energy shortage'.  Energy is abundant. Any ‘crisis’ is created by our choice and use of certain forms of energy, not by any lack of energy.

We can ‘conserve energy’, ‘save energy’ 'waste energy', lose energy'. Such claims contradict the Principle of Conservation. We can, however conserve or waste useful forms of energy and fuels.  

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