Democratic Underground - It is called the carbon cycle

It is called the carbon cycle.

Where do you think all of the fossil fuels came from.

Plants are natures solar cells. All they need is CO2, H2O, and sunlight. Fertilizers just give the necessary nutrients to sustain the process. All of the energy needed to grow things comes from the sun. Plant tissue and materials are stored solar energy.

Plants don't use oil or natural gas as a power source.

If there were no net energy gain from biomass we would have all starved to death by now.
http://mcnet.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html

The diagram above shows how both energy and inorganic nutrients flow through the ecosystem. We need to define some terminology first. Energy "flows" through the ecosystem in the form of carbon-carbon bonds. When respiration occurs, the carbon-carbon bonds are broken and the carbon is combined with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. This process releases the energy, which is either used by the organism (to move its muscles, digest food, excrete wastes, think, etc.) or the energy may be lost as heat. The dark arrows represent the movement of this energy. Note that all energy comes from the sun, and that the ultimate fate of all energy in ecosystems is to be lost as heat. Energy does not recycle!!

To summarize: In the flow of energy and inorganic nutrients through the ecosystem, a few generalizations can be made:

1 The ultimate source of energy (for most ecosystems) is the sun
2 The ultimate fate of energy in ecosystems is for it to be lost as heat.
3 Energy and nutrients are passed from organism to organism through the food chain as one organism eats another.
4 Decomposers remove the last energy from the remains of organisms.
5 Inorganic nutrients are cycled, energy is not.

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