Where does released energy go?

Answer 1

by atoms fusing together or splitting apart

Answer 2

Released energy can be converted into various forms such as heat, light, sound, or mechanical work. In most natural processes, the released energy eventually dissipates into the surroundings and contributes to increasing entropy in the system.

Answer 3

Energy which is released from fossil fuels or uranium is used to produce electricity, but a large amount of energy becomes too low grade to be useful and it is just dissipated into the environment. The electric energy is used in various ways, but again after it has done useful work, ultimately it is just absorbed into the earth's atmosphere or oceans. Similarly all the energy produced by road and air traffic and heating of buildings ultimately ends up in the environment as low grade energy.

The earth is continually receiving energy from the sun and radiating energy back into space, and the energy produced by man goes into this heat balance as a minor component, it is not enough to make much difference, but if it was large enough to make a difference it would raise the earth's temperature slightly and a new balance would be achieved.

(This is not the same as causing additional greenhouse gases, that is one area of man's activities that can make a difference to the earth's thermal balance)

Answer 4

I assume you mean the energy rejected from a heat engine, such as a turbine on a power station or an internal combustion engine. This is just rejected to the environment, either to the atmosphere or to a source of cooling water. In power plants this energy is at such a low temperature that it is not useful, though I know one power plant where someone tried to use the slightly warm water to grow shrimps. In the case of vehicles moving independently the rejected heat is clearly not collectable, apart from heating the interior in cold weather, it is lost from the radiator and the exhaust.

The energy so lost in fact goes into the overall heat balance of the earth. We receive energy from the sun and radiate energy back into space, these are roughly balanced and if they were not the earth would heat up or cool. This has happened in the distant past, and some think is happening now. Time will tell, we may know by the end of this century!

Answer 5

Wasted energy (mainly in the form of thermal energy) is dispersed into the surroundings. For example; say steam/hot water vapour in a nuclear power station would settle, rise into the atmosphere or the thermal energy will be transferred to surrounding molecules and eventually disperse amongst them.

Answer 6

An exothermic reaction releases energy as heat. The majority of these reactions release heat into the air, like a firework. Even if it isn't into the air, the heat just slowly dissipates into the material that it was released in.

Answer 7

"Wasted" energy is formally defined as energy that does no work while transitioning from one state to another. Informally, waste energy is energy that is expended without accomplishing any USEFUL work.

As an example: when you run your refrigerator, the compressor does work on the refrigeration fluid to compress it and get it ready to absorb heat from inside the refrigerator. Not all the work it does is used to compress the fluid; some of it goes into overcoming the friction inherent in any moving part. From that standpoint, the work expended just to make the motor of the compressor move could be considered "wasted" - even though it is certainly necessary work in order to get the compressor to do its job.

Answer 8

it is converted into other forms of energy that are less able to work. like heat

Answer 9

it generates seismic waves that spread out in all directions around earth

Answer 10

By converting energy from one form to another, you have some energy loss mostly as heat due to friction, but also some as sound (waves).