January 29th, 2008

How does the law of conservation of energy apply to the burning of coal?

Scooby Snacks asked:


How does the law of conservation of energy apply to the burning of coal?
You kind of have to think about this…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 7:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “How does the law of conservation of energy apply to the burning of coal?”

  1. ny_spinner_dan Says:
    January 29th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    When the coal is in its normal state, there is a lot of energy in it called chemical/potential energy. This means that the energy is inside the bonds of coal. When coal is burned, the energy is released and converted into light and heat energy.
    The law of conservation of energy states that on both sides of an equation, the amount of energy, in general, stays the same. Personally, I do not believe that it is 100% accurate since in nuclear fission, mass turns into energy, but in this case, it is true. Released from the coal is only as much energy as the coal orriginally had.