Energy is everywhere; sometimes you can see, feel and hear it but even if you cant it doesn't mean that it isn't there.  Energy has the potential to manifest itself in any of these ways but where it is least apparent is of the greatest importance in physics.  It may sound odd but a brick is full of energy, in fact a brick weighing 1kg contains binding energy which would be sufficient to send 1million tons to the moon.  Unfortunately though we have no way of releasing this energy from the brick, but thousands of years ago people did find a way of releasing energy from some materials.

When we burn a piece of wood some of its energy is converted into heat and light which are forms of energy that we can see and feel.  The amount of energy lost from the wood during burning is exactly equal to the energy released in other forms, energy can not be used up this is a law of physics, it can however be wasted.  Wasting energy is not using it up, it is changing it into a form that we can not make use of.

What we want from a car engine is kinetic energy, kinetic energy is movement energy, without any air resistance (like in space) if you were to kick a ball it would never stop.  When the ball is moving it has kinetic energy, in a real situation like here on earth the ball will eventually stop due to friction which results in heat energy.  Heat energy is very much like kinetic energy but on a much smaller scale.

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