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Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem. [1] All living organisms can be organized into producers and consumers , and those producers and consumers can further be organized into a food chain .
where: is the rate of change of the energy density in the volume. ∇•S is the energy flow out of the volume, given by the divergence of the Poynting vector S. J•E is the rate at which the fields do work on charges in the volume (J is the current density corresponding to the motion of charge, E is the electric field, and • is the dot product).
Energy flux is the rate of transfer of energy through a surface. The quantity is defined in two different ways, depending on the context: Total rate of energy transfer (not per unit area); [1] SI units: W = J⋅s −1. Specific rate of energy transfer (total normalized per unit area); [2] SI units: W⋅m −2 = J⋅m −2 ⋅s −1:
"Energy current" is a somewhat informal term that is used, on occasion, to describe the process of energy transfer in situations where the transfer can usefully be viewed in terms of a flow. It is particularly used when the transfer of energy is more significant to the discussion than the process by which the energy is transferred.
The flow of heat from Earth's interior to the surface is estimated at 47±2 terawatts (TW) [1] and comes from two main sources in roughly equal amounts: the radiogenic heat produced by the radioactive decay of isotopes in the mantle and crust, and the primordial heat left over from the formation of Earth. [2]
When a system transforms reversibly from an initial state to a final state under these conditions, the decrease in Gibbs free energy equals the work done by the system to its surroundings, minus the work of the pressure forces. [1] The Gibbs energy is the thermodynamic potential that is minimized when a system reaches chemical equilibrium at ...
This transfer of energy between different scales requires that the dynamics of the system is nonlinear. Strictly speaking, a cascade requires the energy transfer to be local in scale (only between fluctuations of nearly the same size), evoking a cascading waterfall from pool to pool without long-range transfers across the scale domain.
Exergy, often referred to as "available energy" or "useful work potential", is a fundamental concept in the field of thermodynamics and engineering.It plays a crucial role in understanding and quantifying the quality of energy within a system and its potential to perform useful work.