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Electricity used to seem to me almost like magic.  Flip a switch and it comes on.  Reliably.  Uninterrupted.  The user need have no understanding of how or why.  And here’s the evidence of that:  Since I have been tall enough to reach the switch, I have been able to turn on electricity.  My success rate approached 100%.  And yet, until recently, I had no idea how electricity was made.

Well, I have learned that electricity is generated by moving enormous turbines.  A turbine might be compared to a windmill or a pinwheel.  It is a collection of blades attached at one end to a hub.  When some type of fluid passes along the blades, causing them to spin.  The fluid used can be water, steam, air, or gases caused by the combustion of fuel.  The turbines can spin at very high rates and the kinetic energy caused by the spinning is made into electricity.  The spinning turbines push a huge magnet along a wire.  This causes the wire to be electrified.  The electricity is pushed out of the wire through a series of transformers.  And electricity is then stored in the transformers.

Now, we often refer to the fluid used to cause the turbines to spin when we refer to electricity.  So “hydroelectric power” means that water was used to spin the turbines, while “coal power” indicates that coal was used to heat water into steam which in turn caused the blades to spin.

A common way of causing the turbines to spin is by burning fossil fuels.  In this case, coal, petroleum and natural gas are used to heat water to boiling, causing steam.  The steam turns the blades of the turbines.  Of course, burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, which contributes to pollution and climate change.  So although this method is common, efforts have increased recently to find other ways of generating the power necessary to generate electricity.

Hydroelectric power uses water to move the turbines.  When hydroelectric power is used, dams are constructed to manage the water flow, so that the quantity and power of the water are contained and exploited as needed to move the turbines.  The water is heated in the process of using the water for hydroelectric power, causing damage to the ecosystem.

Wind power is produced when wind is used to move the turbines.  In many parts of the country, “wind farms,” that is, fields of wind turbines stand ready for the wind to blow, to move the turbines cleanly and generate electricity.

Nuclear energy is produced when nuclear fission heats water to boiling.  The steam released by the boiling water is the fluid used to cause the turbines to spin.

Recently, efforts have been made to turn bio-waste into electricity.  As with fossil fuels and nuclear energy, the bio-waste is burned to heat water to boiling and turn it into steam.  The steam causes the blades of the turbine to move and electricity is generated as described above.

Solar energy, in contrast, does not rely on turbines.  Rather, solar energy uses the sun’s radiation to act upon photovoltaic cells.  We will examine how the sun’s rays become electricity in a future article.

In the meantime, if you are interested in turning your home into a solar powered home, or in installing residential wind turbines, visit Earth4Energy and do it yourself!  

Read more about wind turbines here:

• Urban Wind Turbine: A Rare Species Spotted – Ask a die-hard altpower fan if they’ve ever seen a functional wind turbine in the urban jungle, and chances are, …

• WindEnergy7.com » Blog Archive » buy turbine, home wind turbines – Free green power isn’t all you get from a home wind turbine, with your investment you have improved your home value dramatically. Your wind/solar powered home is more likely to sell than others with no home generation or emergency power …