Do we need different forms of energy?

Today UE1 had a long discussion about chemical energy. The discussion became very general so Eleanor suggested they take a more specific example to work with: gasoline on fire. After discussing in small groups how they would represent this scenario in energy theatre the groups compared answers. Everyone seemed to be on the same page that the gasoline had chemical energy to start with and that when it came in contact with the heat energy of a lit match that a reaction took place which transformed chemical energy into light and thermal energy.

Although everyone seemed to agree on this representation, it didn't seem that everyone thought of chemical energy as energy that is stored. Heather kept going back to the idea of WHEN and WHERE the chemical energy was and kept mentioning the idea of the interaction of substances as the cause(?) of chemical energy. (I need to get video from this morning and I will make an episode... If I'm allowed to make an episode of Heather?). At one point she specifically asked if we could just have two kind of chemical energy: active chemical energy and potential chemical energy. (Sam talks about this idea in her post about yesterday). Almost immediately someone pointed out that by definition chemical energy is always potential and that once it's "active" it has transformed into another form of energy.

At this point Heather seemed to have a very interesting idea. She wanted to know why we had different forms of energy in the first place.

"We are just classifying. But what is the overall? What is the pure thing? What is energy?"

This idea stood out to me because I went through the same thought process yesterday! It will be interesting now to see where Heather's thinking goes next (it will be interesting to see where my thinking goes next). Will she see the utility in having different forms of energy so we can more easily talk about energy? Will she begin to think energy isn't even a real thing? Will she continue on this line of what is the "pure" thing behind it all?