For example, I was listening to a podcast about hydropower, and the mentioned that the water current does what it does, and shakes these electrons free and that creates electricity, but do the h2o molecules lose an electron, or are there just a ton of free roaming electrons out I’m the world. I have no clue how it all works, do maybe my assumptions are all wrong, Thanks in advance!
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Water at a hydropower plant moves the generator, which in turn creates electricity. In the most simple case an electrical generator just physically moves some electrons from one side to another (like, with a brush). The first side now has a lack of electrons (some atoms there have a less than full complement, becoming ions), while the other side has an excess of electrons. Now those electrons want to go back to their atoms, but the only way for them to do that is go all the way around through the wire, making electric power stuff working on the way.
It’s not how the generators on a power plant work (for starters, they generate alternating current, that is, the electrons in the wire go back and forth many times a second). But it’s close enough for eli5, I guess.
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