how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)
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Also hydro, coal, gas wind and nuclear actually make electric the same way.
It’s generally made by somehow forcing something to spin inside a magnet creating a current.
The water just turns the turbine with its own power as does wind. Gas coal and nuclear create heat/steam to turn the turbine.
Solar is different something to do with chemistry or something?
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.
You cannot create (or destroy) energy, you can only convert it from one form to another.
So electricity is created when you convert one form of energy (chemical energy, potential energy, kite if energy, heat energy) into electricity.
In 2019 this is how the world’s electricity was generated :
* Coal 37%
* Natural Gas 24%
* Hydro 16%
* Nuclear 10%
* Wind 5%
* Solar 3%
* Other 5%
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation)
If we exclude Solar and “other” then 92% of the world’s electricity is produced by turning a generator.
With hydro you use the potential and kinetic energy of falling water (e.g. in the lake in a dam) to turn a turbine which is attached to the generator.
With wind you use the kinetic energy of the wind as it passes by the huge blades which makes then turn, and that turns your generator.
With Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear you boil water and turn it into steam. That steam then passes by a turbine which makes it turn, and that turns your generator. You turn chemical energy (the fuel) into heat energy into kinetic energy into electricity.
Ultimately it comes down to : turning a generator produces electricity.
For the most part, all methods you mentioned achieve the same thing.
They move water to spin a wheel.
Here is your ELI5, except for solar panels all the other ways to make electricity require spinning a generator. The generator has a shaft on one end and terminals on the other end where the electricity comes out. Hydro is falling water turning a water wheel that is mounted to that shaft on the generator I talked about. Coal is burned to make heat. Heating water makes steam. Steam has enough force to push things like a turbine. A turbine is just like a water wheel that is pushed by steam instead of water. Nuclear also makes heat, which makes steam which works the same as coal. Wind turbines is just a propeller turning the shaft of a generator.
Two ways to make electricity.
1. with chemical reactions (batteries do this)
2. by passing a magnet over a wire (generators do this)
with the first one, you need two chemical reactions. one that produces extra electrons, and one that absorbs electrons. Neither reaction will happen on it’s own, but if you connect those two chemical reactions with a wire, electricity will flow from the electron donor to the electron absorber. a batter is just a container with the ingredients for these chemical reactions packed inside.
with the second one, usually you coil the wire up, and spin a magnet around inside the coil of wire. that’s how electrical generators work. It doesn’t really matter how you get that magnet to spin. you can use a steam engine, a gasoline engine, a water turbine, a person pedaling a bicycle, or a hamster on a wheel.
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