Look at these images. All of them represent energy. What is energy?

Energy is the ability of a system to do work. That system may be batteries powering an electronic game system or windmills capturing wind energy to power a city. When an object or an organism does work, energy is transferred to another form. Work can be defined as the transfer of energy.

There are two main types of energy, potential energy and kinetic energy.

Click on the graphic below to learn more about potential and kinetic energy.

Potential and kinetic energy come in various forms.

The graphic below shows the major forms of energy. Click on each icon to learn more about the different forms of energy.

The law of conservation of energy states that energy is never created nor destroyed. It is just transformed into other forms of energy. The total amount of energy is the same before and after any energy transformation.

During photosynthesis, radiant energy from the sun is transformed into chemical energy.

How does this energy transformation happen? Where does it take place?