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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It’s like a bike chain. When you pedal the bike, the force is moving chain links. Does the pedal sprocket get its chain links back? Yes, they come back on the bottom. This is why electricity needs two wires.
Think of the electrons like water in a very large section of Horizontal pipe with an upright opening at each end and is brimming full of water.
You tip a bucket of water in one end and water overflows off the other end.
The water that overflows is not the “same” water you tipped in.
The ” movement” of electrons in a conductor is like this
Look I know I’m late to the party but one of the conceptual things just to keep in mind is that if you take something like an LED light, it doesn’t EAT electrons to make the light. Electrons come into the LED at a high energy and then the LED causes the electron to drop to a lower energy, the difference in those energy states is what is used to make light, but the electron is still there, just at a lower energy. Now it needs to become excited again (moved to a higher state) to be used, but the number of electrons don’t change.
Imagine water. When you open the tap it’s not water from the reservoir coming all the way, but that water helps push everything else along the way so that the water close to you goes out. Same thing for electricity but nothing is spilled, it circulates all the way back. And if you have AC it goes back and forth.
Now it is possible to “spill” electrons but it’s a completely different thing, our power grid is a closed system where that is negligible.
About “depleting electrons” yes that is possible! Radiation can strip off electrons and it can be a problem for spaceships. It doesn’t go as far as having no more electrons but missing a bunch already causes issues.
So you have two kinds of electricity: Direct Current and Alternating Current.
With Direct Current, yes, the electrons leave the power plant, travels through the wires to your house and then back to the power plant. Assuming you give it enough time, that is, as the electrons travel a lot slower than you’d expect, something like a millimeter a second in the wires you’ve got in your house.
With Alternating Current, the direction of the currency switches every 1/60th of a second in North America (every 1/50th of a second in Europe). So the electrons don’t really have the time to get anywhere, just back and forth.
We don’t actually know the true underlying mechanism, not on a quantum level. To answer your question, no, the electrons aren’t moving the entire length of the circuit rapidly.
Think of it more like one of those Newton’s cradles, the energy is transmitted along a whole line of electrons, without having them move at high speeds.
My understanding is that eventually, an electron emitted will probably reach the source again, but I don’t know enough detail to be sure.
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