false The law of conservation of energy (also known as the 1st law of thermodynamics) states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. There is one caveat to that, however. If you include the famous equation E=M Csquared (couldn't get the superscript to show up there), then mass and energy are conserved, not just energy. In a fusion reaction, for example, the "mass" posessed by the nuclear potential energy released is large enough to represent a loss of mass to the original material (also known as the "mass defect"). This nuclear potential energy normally shows up as included in the mass of the system before the reaction so it appears that energy has been created. The analogous release of electrical energy in some chemical reactions is too small to create a measurable mass defect.