So a generator is magnets and copper coil yeah? They make electricity and electricity is moving electrons. Power generators and electric stations are kilometres away. Do the copper coils get their electrons back?
Won’t the copper coil run out of electrons. How the electrons come back (if they do)?
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Essentially, the electrons do come back, yes. That’s why you need to have a “circuit”, they need a path back to the beginning.
The reason it works is because it’s actually the field formed by the electrons which carries energy through the circuit. So the electrons come back, but leave the energy behind (in your toaster, TV, whatever).
That’s the ELI5 answer, but in reality it would be unlikely any single electron actually “travels” the entire circuit. For example, if you tie 2 wires together, electrons don’t flow from one wire into the other (edit: but they still flow through *each* wire, u/Stargate_1), what actually happens is the electrons in one wire transfer energy to the electrons in the other. This gets more complicated when we introduce other electric devices, like capacitors and semiconductors, where the charge flowing may not be electrons at all.
The electrons come back, the same way a bicycle chain comes back when you pedal.
A generator pushes electrons from one end of a wire to the other. Electrons don’t like to be crowded, so if you connect the ends together, they’ll push one another around the circuit, creating current. If you don’t connect the more crowded end to the less crowded end, they can’t keep replenishing the generator, and no current will flow.
No, electrons don’t fly all the way from the powerplant to your home and back whenever you turn on a lamp. It’s more like Newton’s cradle toy – powerplant gives it a whack from one end, the ball on the other end moves and that’s your light, but then balls settle as they were.
Electron drift speed is about 1mm per second.
For every electron pushed out of the coils by the generator an electron is pulled in on the return circuit. The number of electrons in the copper coils does not change.
It is also worth noting that most large generators are AC, so the electrons are pushed and pulled 50 times a second. The drift speed of electrons in an AC circuit is essentially zero.
Yes, generators use magnets and copper coils to create electricity. But don’t worry, the copper coils won’t run out of electrons. Here’s why: When a generator produces electricity, it doesn’t actually send its own electrons down the wire. Instead, it pushes the electrons that are already in the wires. This creates a flow of electrons, which we call electricity. It’s a bit like water in a pipe – the generator pushes the electrons along, but doesn’t need to supply them. So, the electrons don’t really come back to the generator because they never left!
Veritasium did a video about this on YouTube that “sparked” quite a debate. Copper /Aluminum electrons do move slowly through the wire, but super slow. As others have said the electric field generated by pushing voltage through the wire is almost instantaneous in a completed circuit. If you haven’t watched Electroboom on YouTube he does some commentary on Veritasium’s video that’s also pretty interesting. All in all, it’s still kind of mysterious.
It is more like the links in a chain, the whole chain moves to deliver energy from one end to the other.
Electricity is moving electrons in the same way a belt is moving rubber. This is why you need to have a circuit that returns. The charge is pushed along the electrons. This is also why electrons move very slowly through a circuit but when you turn the light on it happens instantly. Same as with the belt moving one end moves the other so it instantly applies power.
It’s more like clothes line pulley and the string is the electrons. The generator makes the energy source turn the pulley on one end, which pulls the strong and turns the pulley on the other end, where the energy will be used to do something useful. Like you might imagine atoms in the string vibrating, electrons in wires are moving very fast, but it’s random. When electricity is flowing the electrons are just drifting slowly in one direction around the circuit loop, something like centimeters per second. In DC electricity the pulley is spinning in the same direction. In AC electricity it’s like some dude is wiggling the pulley back and forth quickly. You can imagine this can still do work, like if you attached sand paper to the other end pulley you could sand some stuff with.this shaking motion, or make some heat.
With direct current (DC) the electrons do indeed move out of the negative lead and into the positive lead of the power source. They move very slowly (millimeters per second or less). With alternating current (AC) they jiggle back and forth and don’t really move along the wire, but the electromagnetic wave moves which propagates energy and makes the electrons down the line jiggle as well.
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