how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)
In: 26
Electricity is just a bunch of electrons moving in the same direction.
There are a bunch of ways to achieve that, but the easiest is wiggling a magnet. When magnets wiggle near electrons, that creates an electromagnetic force, which shoves the electrons along a wire.
This magnet wiggling is how each of the power sources you mentioned works.
Hydro? Get water to spin a magnet near a wire.
Coal? Burn it to boil water to spin a magnet.
Nuclear? Split atoms to heat water to spin a magnet.
There do exist methods (like solar panels) that don’t use spinning magnets. But since spinning magnets is a pretty easy, and surprisingly efficient way of pushing electrons along wires, that’s how most of our generators work.
**Edit:** Just for fun, here’s how a few other methods work.
– Solar panels essentially work from a thing called the photovoltaic effect. Basically, light bonks the electrons off of their atoms and down the wire.
– Batteries work by having atoms that don’t like electrons very much on one side, and atoms that really love electrons on the other side. The atoms that don’t like electrons spit up their electrons, which travel down the wire to the other side where the electron lovers suck them up.
– Thermoelectric generators basically work because the electrons on the hot end are wiggling more than the cold end (because heat is basically just particle wigglyness). The wigglier particles wiggle their way over to the cold side faster than the colds go to the hot, so you end up with electrons moving from the hot side to the cold side overall.
Latest Answers