Upon entering Theater I from the preshow, guests are seated in six large vehicles to view a short film about the beginnings of life on Earth and the formation of fossil fuels. The battery powered cars then move three abreast into a large diorama depicting the Mesozoic era. Here, guests are transported through an ancient landscape with an erupting volcano and huge full-scale animatronic dinosaurs. The vehicles then enter Theater II, a circle-vision theater, where they reassemble back into their original formation for a film about current and future energy sources. The ride concludes by returning guests to the first theater for a short computer-animated film.

Energy was probably the most technically difficult of the Epcot Pavilions. Challenges included theater to theater noise isolation, reverberation control, vehicle noise isolation, and control of the noise associated with the large turntables and the vehicle charging mechanisms.

The theaters had to be isolated from each other not only with walls but with 90 ft wide x 10 ft high doors which could attenuate the 100 dB low frequency sound in adjacent shows. Each 25,000 lb door is counterbalanced with weights and moves via hydraulic cylinders. They were designed to be lowered into the floor and had to support the 40,000 lb weight of the vehicles passing over them.

The vehicles are propelled by electric motors, and their batteries are charged by inductive coupled plates built into the turntables. Since magnetostrictive vibrations in the plates radiate noise up to the guests, sophisticated engineering techniques were required to reduce the motor and plate noise to acceptable levels.

In the theaters, the vehicles are supported by large steel turntables to provide the best viewing angle. Air casters that blow air out of holes in the center of a vinyl bag underneath the bearing plate were utilized to form a cushion of air to facilitate rotation. A problem arose when the air flow was modulated by vibrations in the bag openings. The vinyl surface would move over imperfections in the floor, which allowed the escaping air to vibrate the vinyl. The result was a siren effect, which generated a 110 dB tone. The solution was to control the smoothness of the floor for the 90 ft diameter turntable.