What is electricity?

June 14, 2001

Editor’s note: This is the next installment of WorldNetDaily’s exclusive ongoing coverage of the California energy crisis. Many Americans, particularly Californians, are obsessed with the topic of energy, from production to conservation. It’s in the daily, even hourly, news. It is the object of political debate and the impetus for draining pocketbooks, and its scarcity has brought Californians to their knees. Today, WND reporter Julie Foster reviews the basics of electricity generation – what it is and how it works.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday began the first of two hearings on the energy crisis, focusing on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s role in energy-industry restructuring.

Led by its new Democrat Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the committee will also discuss electricity prices at a second hearing on June 20. But it’s difficult to discuss practical issues related to electricity – such as its cost, the environmental effects of production and the type of generating facility to build – without first understanding what electricity is and where it comes from.

In simple terms, electricity is the movement of electrons. Everything, including the air we breathe, is made of atoms that generally have three basic parts – neutrons, protons and electrons.

The nucleus of the atom contains positively charged protons, and neutrons, which have no charge. Negatively charged electrons whirl around the nucleus. Electrons of many elements, particularly metals, are easily knocked off from their parent atoms and can wander freely between atoms. If an electron is bumped off its atom, it must find a new “home” on another atom. Likewise, if an atom loses an electron, it must fill the gap with another one. The movement of electrons from atom to atom is an electrical current.

To produce electricity, generators must be built that can bump electrons off atoms, creating an electric current. Usually, a coil of wire, or rotor, is rotated in a magnetic cylinder, doing just that. While electricity itself is relatively simple, choosing the method of generating the current is often a bone of contention. (This diagram shows the heart of a generator. Source: Energy Information Administration.)

Electricity generation boils down to one question: how to turn the rotor. Hydroelectric generators use the force of moving water to spin giant propellers, which turn turbines with rotors attached at the end. For this reason, dams are built to create water pressure when naturally flowing water is unavailable or insufficient. Likewise, wind turbines use nature to produce electricity. When wind turns a windmill, it also turns a shaft inside the turbine, which is connected to a rotor. (Click here to see the cross-section of a hydroelectric generating facility. Source: Department of Energy.)

Another method of production uses natural gas. Gas-burning generators can be used like other steam turbines, but the fossil fuel is also used in a somewhat different method of electricity generation. Gas turbines are very similar to jet engines in design, except they include extra blades – called the power turbine – on a shaft. When the engine runs, the shaft turns, spinning the rotor, which creates electricity. The electricity is then channeled along wires through a system of power lines and into your home.

One of the most common methods of generation is through steam power. In such generators, water is boiled to create steam, which builds pressure and turns the rotor. Various methods are used to boil the water, the most common of which is the burning of coal. About half of the nation’s electricity last year was produced by coal-burning generators. Some burn other materials, such as waste. But one method burns nothing at all: nuclear power plants.

Like other traditional power plants, nuclear plants produce electricity by creating steam pressure. Nothing is burned or exploded in a nuclear reactor. Instead, the plants house controlled nuclear reactions, called fission, which generate tremendous heat used to boil the water. Fission is created using a naturally radioactive substance called uranium that has been formed into ceramic pellets about the size of the end of your little finger. The pellets are inserted into long, vertical tubes within the reactor core. As uranium atoms in these pellets are struck by atomic particles, they split, releasing particles of their own. These particles – called neutrons – strike other uranium atoms, splitting them. The sequence of one fission triggering others, and those triggering still more, is called a chain reaction. The heat produced by splitting atoms is known as nuclear energy.

The nuclear reaction is controlled by rods inserted among the tubes holding the uranium fuel. By varying the number of control rods, a nuclear reaction can be sped up or slowed down.

There are two types of nuclear reactors: pressurized water reactors (Click here for diagram from Nuclear Reactor Commission) and boiling water reactors (See animated graphic from Nuclear Reactor Commission.) The latter directly boils water in the reactor while the former redirects heat from the reactor to a steam generator.

Unlike the previous methods of electricity generation discussed, solar power does not rely on the rotation of rotors to produce an electric current. Instead, energy from the sun is directed into photovoltaic cells and converted into electricity. Photovoltaic cells are made primarily of silicon, the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust and the same semiconductor material used for computers. When the silicon is combined with one or more other materials, it exhibits unique electrical properties in the presence of sunlight. Electrons are excited by the light and move through the silicon. This is known as the photovoltaic effect. “PV modules,” or solar panels, have no moving parts, are virtually maintenance-free and have a working life of 20 to 30 years.

Every method of electricity production has its drawbacks. Hydroelectric power can be slowed by drought. Wind turbines slow down naturally when wind patterns change. Fossil fuel-burning plants deplete natural resources and create pollution. Nuclear plants produce radioactive waste that must be stored. Solar panels are expensive and require huge amounts of space to generate more than one household’s electricity.

In California, where no new major power plants have been built in 12 years, speed was a primary decision factor in choosing a power-generation method. The state’s energy shortage, combined with numerous other factors, has helped create rate hikes for electricity. Now new generators need to be brought on line to alleviate the problem. It is projected that four new natural-gas plants will be completed by the end of the summer – too late to help prevent rolling blackouts during triple-digit heat waves. While the efficiency of gas-turbine generators is low, the method’s biggest advantage is that the plants can be up and running in much less time than other, more traditional methods of generation. Natural-gas plants’ relatively minimal equipment requirements also make them an attractive option for the state. The generators are much smaller and less expensive than their steam-turbine counterparts, which makes them easier to transport and install on short notice.

In the meantime, the Senate Governmental Relations Committee debates the federal government’s role in energy industry restructuring plans and electricity prices. California Gov. Gray Davis has repeatedly asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to create temporary price controls on electricity rates, but the Bush administration has held firm to its position that “there are no short-term solutions to long-term neglect.”