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Portal:Energy

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The Energy Portal
Welcome to Wikipedia's Energy portal, your gateway to energy. This portal is aimed at giving you access to all energy related topics in all of its forms.
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Introduction

A plasma globe using electrical energy to create plasma, light, heat, movement and a faint sound

Energy (from Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia) 'activity') is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed. The unit of measurement for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (J).

Forms of energy include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object (for instance due to its position in a field), the elastic energy stored in a solid object, chemical energy associated with chemical reactions, the radiant energy carried by electromagnetic radiation, the internal energy contained within a thermodynamic system, and rest energy associated with an object's rest mass. These are not mutually exclusive.

All living organisms constantly take in and release energy. The Earth's climate and ecosystems processes are driven primarily by radiant energy from the sun. The energy industry provides the energy required for human civilization to function, which it obtains from energy resources such as fossil fuels, nuclear fuel, and renewable energy. (Full article...)

Selected article

The 1973 oil crisis began in earnest on October 17, 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announced, as a result of the ongoing Yom Kippur War, that they would no longer ship petroleum to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt (i.e., to the United States and its allies in Western Europe).

At about the same time, OPEC members agreed to use their leverage over the world price-setting mechanism for oil in order to quadruple world oil prices, after attempts at negotiation failed. Due to the dependence of the industrialized world on OPEC oil, these price increases were dramatically inflationary to the economies of the targeted countries, while at the same time suppressive of economic activity.

This increase in the price of oil had a dramatic effect on oil exporting nations, for the countries of the Middle East who had long been dominated by the industrial powers were seen to have acquired control of a vital commodity. The traditional flow of capital reversed as the oil exporting nations accumulated vast wealth. Meanwhile, the shock produced chaos in the West, and shares on the New York Stock Exchange lost $97 billion in value in six weeks.

Selected image

Photo credit: From an image by Wolfgang Beyer
Strombolian volcanic eruptions can eject incandescent cinder, lapilli and lava bombs to altitudes of tens to hundreds of meters.

Did you know?

SEGS solar power plant
SEGS solar power plant
  • The concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has increased from about 280 parts per million to about 380 ppm since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That's an increase of 35.71%. The estimated population of the world in 1750 was 791 Million people. The estimated population of the world on June 30th, 2007 was 6.6 Billion people. That's an increase of 734.39%.?
  • In the 1990s Bougainville conflict, islanders cut off from oil supplies due to a blockade used coconut oil to fuel their vehicles?

Selected biography

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James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist. His most significant achievement was formulating a set of equations – eponymously named Maxwell's equations – that for the first time expressed the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in a unified fashion. Maxwell's contributions to physics are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

Maxwell studied natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and mental philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, before graduating in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where he would conduct much of his career. He built on Michael Faraday's work on magnetic induction, using elements of geometry and algebra to demonstrate that electric and magnetic fields travel through space, in the form of waves, and at the constant speed of light. Finally, in 1861, Maxwell proposed that light consisted of undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. In the same year he was elected to the Royal Society.

In 1864, Maxwell presented what are now known as Maxwell's equations to the Royal Society. These collectively describe the behaviour of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter.

In the news

13 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
Israeli decapitation strikes kill commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami, senior nuclear scientist and former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi, and chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Bagheri and Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani. (The Times of Israel) (BBC News)
12 June 2025 – Nuclear program of Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency finds Iran in breach of its obligations to limit uranium enrichment and provision of information on its nuclear materials. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
6 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
Widespread power outages are reported in Ternopil after several cruise missiles hit energy infrastructure supplying the city. (Ukrinform)
29 May 2025 – Lliuya v RWE AG
A court in Germany rejects a lawsuit filed by a Peruvian farmer against German energy firm RWE. Saúl Luciano Lliuya alleged that the firm's global emissions contributed to the melting of glaciers in Peru, threatening his hometown of Huaraz with flooding. (BBC News)

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The following are images from various energy-related articles on Wikipedia.

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