7.6 Conservation of energy

Learning objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the law of the conservation of energy.
• Describe some of the many forms of energy.
• Define efficiency of an energy conversion process as the fraction left as useful energy or work, rather than being transformed, for example, into thermal energy.

The information presented in this section supports the following AP® learning objectives and science practices:

• 4.C.1.2 The student is able to predict changes in the total energy of a system due to changes in position and speed of objects or frictional interactions within the system. (S.P. 6.4)
• 4.C.2.1 The student is able to make predictions about the changes in the mechanical energy of a system when a component of an external force acts parallel or antiparallel to the direction of the displacement of the center of mass. (S.P. 6.4)
• 4.C.2.2 The student is able to apply the concepts of conservation of energy and the work-energy theorem to determine qualitatively and/or quantitatively that work done on a two-object system in linear motion will change the kinetic energy of the center of mass of the system, the potential energy of the systems, and/or the internal energy of the system. (S.P. 1.4, 2.2, 7.2)
• 5.A.2.1 The student is able to define open and closed systems for everyday situations and apply conservation concepts for energy, charge, and linear momentum to those situations. (S.P. 6.4, 7.2)
• 5.B.5.4 The student is able to make claims about the interaction between a system and its environment in which the environment exerts a force on the system, thus doing work on the system and changing the energy of the system (kinetic energy plus potential energy). (S.P. 6.4, 7.2)
• 5.B.5.5 The student is able to predict and calculate the energy transfer to (i.e., the work done on) an object or system from information about a force exerted on the object or system through a distance. (S.P. 2.2, 6.4)

Law of conservation of energy

Energy, as we have noted, is conserved, making it one of the most important physical quantities in nature. The law of conservation of energy    can be stated as follows:

Total energy is constant in any process. It may change in form or be transferred from one system to another, but the total remains the same.

We have explored some forms of energy and some ways it can be transferred from one system to another. This exploration led to the definition of two major types of energy—mechanical energy $\left(\text{KE}+\text{PE}\right)$ and energy transferred via work done by nonconservative forces $(W_{\text{nc}})$ . But energy takes many other forms, manifesting itself in many different ways, and we need to be able to deal with all of these before we can write an equation for the above general statement of the conservation of energy.

Other forms of energy than mechanical energy

At this point, we deal with all other forms of energy by lumping them into a single group called other energy ( $\text{OE}$ ). Then we can state the conservation of energy in equation form as

All types of energy and work can be included in this very general statement of conservation of energy. Kinetic energy is $\text{KE}$ , work done by a conservative force is represented by $\text{PE}$ , work done by nonconservative forces is $W_{\text{nc}}$ , and all other energies are included as $\text{OE}$ . This equation applies to all previous examples; in those situations $\text{OE}$ was constant, and so it subtracted out and was not directly considered.