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Chemical energy is the potential of a chemical substance to undergo a transformation through a chemical reaction to transform other chemical substances. Examples include batteries, food, gasoline, and etc. Breaking or making of chemical bonds involves energy, which may be either absorbed or evolved from a chemical system.
The energy value of coal, or the fuel content, is the amount of potential energy in coal that can be converted into actual heating ability. The value can be calculated and compared with different grades of coal or even other materials. Materials of different grades will produce differing amounts of heat for a given mass.
Wood fuel is a fuel, such as firewood, charcoal, chips, sheets, pellets, and sawdust. The particular form used depends upon factors such as source, quantity, quality and application. In many areas, wood is the most easily available form of fuel, requiring no tools in the case of picking up dead wood, or few tools, although as in any industry, specialized tools, such as skidders and hydraulic wood splitters, have been developed to mechanize production. Sawmill waste and construction industry by-products also include various forms of lumber tailings. The discovery of how to make fire for the purpose of burning wood is regarded as one of humanity's most important advances. The use of wood as a fuel source for heating is much older than civilization and is assumed to have been used by Neanderthals. Today, burning of wood is the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. Wood fuel can be used for cooking and heating, and occasionally for fueling steam engines and steam turbines that generate electricity. Wood may be used indoors in a furnace, stove, or fireplace, or outdoors in furnace, campfire, or bonfire.
In electric power generation a combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy, which in turn usually drives electrical generators. The principle is that after completing its cycle, the temperature of the working fluid in the system is still high enough that a second subsequent heat engine extracts energy from the heat that the first engine produced. By combining these multiple streams of work upon a single mechanical shaft turning an electric generator, the overall net efficiency of the system may be increased by 50–60%. That is, from an overall efficiency of say 34%, to possibly an overall efficiency of 62%, 84% Theoretical efficiency
The heating value of a substance, usually a fuel or food, is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it.
This glossary of wildfire terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to wildfires and wildland firefighting. Except where noted, terms have largely been sourced from a 1998 Fireline Handbook transcribed for a Conflict 21 counter-terrorism studies website by the Air National Guard.
Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. Colloquially it may also be used for energy per unit mass, though the accurate term for this is specific energy. Often only the useful or extractable energy is measured, which is to say that inaccessible energy is ignored. In cosmological and other general relativistic contexts, however, the energy densities considered are those that correspond to the elements of the stress–energy tensor and therefore do include mass energy as well as energy densities associated with the pressures described in the next paragraph.
The Forest fire weather index (FWI) is an estimation of the risk of wildfire computed by Météo France and the Meteorological Service of Canada. It was introduced in France in 1992 but is based on a Canadian empirical model developed and widely used since 1976.
Gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) or gasoline-equivalent gallon (GEG) is the amount of alternative fuel it takes to equal the energy content of one liquid gallon of gasoline. GGE allows consumers to compare the energy content of competing fuels against a commonly known fuel—gasoline. GGE also compares gasoline to fuels sold as a gas and electricity.
Wood drying reduces the moisture content of wood before its use. When the drying is done in a kiln, the product is known as kiln-dried timber or lumber, whereas air drying is the more traditional method.
Smouldering or smoldering is the slow, low-temperature, flameless form of combustion, sustained by the heat evolved when oxygen directly attacks the surface of a condensed-phase fuel. Many solid materials can sustain a smouldering reaction, including coal, cellulose, wood, cotton, tobacco, cannabis, peat, plant litter, humus, synthetic foams, charring polymers including polyurethane foam and some types of dust. Common examples of smouldering phenomena are the initiation of residential fires on upholstered furniture by weak heat sources, and the persistent combustion of biomass behind the flaming front of wildfires.
The Energy content of biofuel is a description of the potential energy contained in a given biofuel, measured per unit mass of that fuel, as specific energy, or per unit of volume of the fuel, as energy density. A biofuel is a fuel, produced from living organisms. Biofuels include bioethanol, an alcohol made by fermentation—often used as a gasoline additive, and biodiesel, which is usually used as a diesel additive. Specific energy is energy per unit mass, which is used to describe the energy content of a fuel, expressed in SI units as joule per kilogram (J/kg) or equivalent units. Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a fuel per unit volume, expressed in SI units as joule per litre (J/L) or equivalent units.
Biomass is plant or animal material used for energy production, heat production, or in various industrial processes as raw material for a range of products. It can be purposely grown energy crops, wood or forest residues, waste from food crops, horticulture, food processing, animal farming, or human waste from sewage plants.
A Fuel Model is a stylized set of fuel bed characteristics used as input for a variety of wildfire modeling applications. Wildfire behavior models, such as those of Rothermel, take into account numerous empirical variables. While these inputs are important for equation outputs, they are often difficult and time-consuming, if not impossible, to measure for each fuel bed. A fuel model defines these input variables for a stylized set of quantitative vegetation characteristics that can be visually identified in the field. Depending on local conditions, one of several fuel models may be appropriate. As Anderson states “Fuel models are simply tools to help the user realistically estimate fire behavior. The user must maintain a flexible frame of mind and an adaptive method of operating to totally utilize these aids". Furthermore, depending on the application, the user must choose a fuel model classification system. The major classification systems for use in the United States include the National Fire Danger Rating System, the 13 ‘original’ fuel models of Anderson and Albini, the subsequent set of 40 fuels produced by Scott and Burgan, and the Fuel Characteristics Classification System.
National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) is used in the United States to provide a measure of the relative seriousness of burning conditions and threat of fire.
Burning Index (BI) is a number used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to describe the potential amount of effort needed to contain a single fire in a particular fuel type within a rating area. The National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) uses a modified version of Bryam's equation for flame length - based on the Spread Component (SC) and the available energy (ERC) - to calculate flame length from which the Burning Index is computed.
A wood-burning stove is a heating appliance capable of burning wood fuel and wood-derived biomass fuel, such as sawdust bricks. Generally the appliance consists of a solid metal closed firebox, often lined by fire brick, and one or more air controls. The first wood burning stove was patented in Strasbourg in 1557, two centuries before the Industrial Revolution, which would make iron an inexpensive and common material, so such stoves were high end consumer items and only gradually spread in use.
Green wood is wood that has been recently cut and therefore has not had an opportunity to season (dry) by evaporation of the internal moisture. Green wood contains more moisture than seasoned wood, which has been dried through passage of time or by forced drying in kilns. Green wood is considered to have 100% moisture content relative to air-dried or seasoned wood which is considered to be 20%. Energy density charts for wood fuels tend to use air-dried wood as their reference, thus oven-dried or 0% moisture content can reflect 103.4% energy content.
Flue gas condensation is a process, where flue gas is cooled below its water dew point and the heat released by the resulting condensation of water is recovered as low temperature heat.
