Electricity generation… for those of us who don't know what's up.

By Keith Heyde

So, a lot of people out there have no idea about how energy get to their house. Every day, the magical light switch illuminates their world and they are oblivious to why or how it is working.

Another set of people know that electricity comes from some fuel source such as oil, coal, or natural gas, yet they do not understand how the fuel gets converted into the silent and effective electricity we have become accustomed to.

For all of you in the first group, please take a look at our articles on the energy infrastructure system. They detail how electricity works and how it ‘flows’ through wires to get to your house.

However, for those of you in the second group, this article is for you.

The electricity generation facility is a complicated system. As you may or may not know, most electricity is generated by spinning turbines that induce an electromagnetic gradient. Essentially, this means that we generate electricity by spinning giant magnets that create a flow of electrons along a conductor.

This fact holds true whether we are talking about wind, hydro, oil, nuclear, coal or natural gas electricity generation systems. Solar and fuel cells employ a slightly different (and more direct) means of generating electricity, which we will cover in a coming article.

In a typical electricity plant, the process of generating electricity starts with a fuel source. This fuel source is ignited through various means (or reacted in the case of nuclear) and it generates heat. This heat then is channeled to generate steam. This steam is then channeled and by a series of nozzles its speed is increased dramatically.

At this point, the steam is directed through a series of turbines. These turbines act as the magnetic inductors described earlier. The steam forces them to spin and electricity is generated. In the process the steam not only slows down, but it also cools down partially. Efficient plants optimize the steam’s loss of velocity, pressure, and speed as much as possible.

Finally, the steam passes through a series of cooling tubes that contain cool water from outside. This causes the steam to condense as the heat from the steam is transferred to that of the external water source. It should be noted that this transfer of heat into the cooling water has been a source of environmental contention because it causes what is known as “thermal pollution” into the natural, surrounding ecosystem.

There are two byproducts of the electricity generation system. The first is the electricity itself, which is channeled via AC currents. The second product is the combustion effluent which is a gas. This gas is generally filtered through a series of ‘scrubbers’ before it is released into the general environment.

Electricity generation, surprisingly, does not account for the majority of the energy use worldwide. However, in developed nations it is an ever growing percentage as more and more appliances and utilities employ electricity as their means of power.

For more on electricity, energy, or anything energy related, check back into www.energygridiq.com as soon as possible.