How do we get electricity?

Electricity is kind of like this magical force that makes the world turn. You wake up in the morning after having filled your phone with it all night, and use it to see the time, heat your food, listen to music, start your car, and warm the house. We are so dependent on it, that even at the turn of the century, there was a fear that the sudden disappearance and inability to access this incredibly widespread energy source and it terrified entire populations. Now that Y2K is far behind us, we’ve become even more dependant on it. But where does it come from?

Children may recall a story of Ben Franklin tying a key to a kite and flying it in the sky to capture some lightning in a bottle. The story, while farfetched, is partially true (although we’re unsure whether it was Franklin who did it, and he certainly didn’t trap it in a bottle). But today, our electricity isn’t harnessed by grabbing stray lightning bolts from the sky, though our sources may even seem a bit more fictional—like that we catch sun rays instead.

Old school

So here’s how it works. Many utilities use things like combustion and fossil fuels. By burning these fuels, they are able to create pressure that moves giant turbines, this creates a kind of friction. Friction is a great way to produce electricity, and you’ve probably done it yourself at some point in your life. You can try it now. Simply stand up and shuffle your feet across the carpet. You might have more luck if you wear socks. After a minute, find a person or something and reach for it. Just before or right at contact, you may feel a slight jolt as the built-up electricity in your body discharges. You’ve generated electricity. But these giant turbines use electromagnets in a copper coil to create a similar effect.

The only problem with this is that through each transfer of energy, blowing up the fuel, moving the turbines, creating friction, and harnessing the electricity, you’ve lost some energy. The processes of exchanging this energy aren’t perfect and result in loss, which is only a problem because fossil fuels are limited and let off harmful fuels in the atmosphere, making them a very inefficient way to produce energy. And the cost to ours and the planet’s health is way too high.

New school

Other methods of producing electricity still use friction, but the source of that motion is much cleaner. Windmills use the power of the wind to move their turbines. Hydroelectric uses the flow of a river, usually with the help of a dam, to capture kinetic motion and turn it into electricity. Even geothermal activity simply builds up enough pressure to spin those turbines. Think about a hand-powered flashlight. When you spin the handle with your hand, the turbine inside creates electricity. Power plants do the same thing but on a much larger scale.

One of the few methods that branch away from any turbine spinning methods is solar energy, which uses photovoltaic panels to convert light, whether that’s from the sun or a candle, directly into electricity using semi-conductive material.

So that’s a pretty quick summary of how your electricity is produced. For more information, check out some of our other blogs.