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Producers

How Producers Store Energy

Producers are living things that specialize in capturing energy and storing it in chemicals, such as sugars, starches, fats, and proteins. Most producers are plants, capturing solar energy through the process of photosynthesis. In that process, they use three things: energy (from sunlight), water, and carbon (from carbon dioxide.)

An easy way to see that is by reversing the process, Taking a Marshmallow Apart.

But not all of the sugar produced by photosynthesis is stored as food. Much of it is made into other chemicals that the plant uses for growth, structure, and support. Explore that with some Thoughts on Trees.

How Much Energy Can a Plant Store?

Some producers need more energy than others, and the amount of energy that they store varies quite a bit. To measure that energy, we need a unit of measurement. If you were going to measure distance, you might use feet or meters. If you were going to weigh something, you might use pounds or kilograms. To measure the amount of stored energy, we usually use calories. How much energy is in a calorie? A tasty way to understand that is by trying Calories: Measuring the Energy