how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)

Question

how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)

In: 26

Answer 1

Effectively there are just 2 ways to make electricity- the main one is spinning magnets through conductive coils. But there are many ways to make the coils spin: use flowing water from a damn or the wind to spin a turbine. Nuclear, oil, gas and coal all use the same principle: heat water into steam then take advantage of the sudden rapid expansion (steam takes up way more volume than water) and pass the steam through turbine blades to spin the magnets to generate alternating electrical current.

The other is using photovoltaic tiles to turn the sun’s energy directly into direct current using magic.

There are solar power plants that use the sun’s heat to power the first method like the ones in Nevada- they point sunlight using mirrors at a central point to boil water and again run turbines.