The Source of Our Electricity and Luxury! – Energy Resources

Solar Furnace

Solar furnace at Mont Louis, France

Solar Energy: Solar cells

—Solar cells, are like panels made from semiconducting materials, and these cells convert sunlight into energy directly.
—These cells are used for small-scale power generation.
—There is a large solar power plant in California specialized for manufacturing such cells.

Solar Cell Structure

Wind energy

—Wind energy is converted to electricity by giant windmills called wind turbines.
—They have 3 blades each up to 40 m long. Wind farms are places where more than 20 turbines are placed apart. The wind turns the turbines and this kinetic energy is then converted to electrical energy.
—Wind turbines are too noisy and the turbines are sometimes unable to produce sufficient electricity due to the fact that the wind is sometimes less at ground level.

Wind Turbines are turned by the wind and here is 1 of them:

Wave Energy

—Conversion of wave energy to electrical energy takes place due the rise and fall of sea waves transferred to a device which converts this to rotation of a turbine.
—As this process is relatively new, this is not at large scales.

Tidal and hydroelectric energy

—This energy is converted to electrical energy by the flow of water from a higher level to lower level from behind a dam. This kinetic energy turns the water wheel.
—One of the largest working tidal schemes is the La Grande 1 Project in Canada.
—The construction of dams usually destroy the natural sites which is bad for the environment.

Vaal Dam on the Vaal River, SA

Geothermal Energy

—It can be possible to pump cold water down into a shaft, into the hot molten rocks, known as magma. Then the water will be forced up as steam.
—This steam can be used for various purposes. It can be used for driving turbines, heating buildings, etc.

Biomass

—Biomass or vegetable fuels is one of the most environment-friendly way to obtain energy.
—Vegetable fuels includes cultivated crops, crop residues, vegetation, tree, sewage which are then turned into alcohol or methane gas by fermentation or decomposition.
—These bio-fuels however have only 50% of energy compared to petrol.
—Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide with energy equivalent to 2/3 of natural gas and is produced from animal and human waste in “digestors”

Biogas Digestor

Renewable Sources Power Stations

In most of the power stations of renewable sources: wind, wave, tidal and geothermal, the efficiency is 85-90%. The cost of generating electricity is half of the thermal power stations.

Thanks for reading my information on how we receive electricity and how it is produced.

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