'There is a powerful agent, obedient, rapid, easy, which conforms to every use, and reigns supreme on board my vessel. Everything is done by means of it. It lights it, warms it, and is the soul of my mechanical appliances. This agent is electricity.'

-From 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

Look around your house for a minute. What objects can you see that uses electricity? Your cell-phone, computers, radio, DVD player, bedside lamp - there are simply tons (yes, you can stop counting now). Obviously, electricity plays a huge role in our lives, so much that we see it being used daily, not only at home, but at school, work, and many other places. It is a very valuable and useful form of energy, and we simply couldn't live without it. But what exactly is electrical energy? How did we exactly discover it? And where does it come from? Read on to find out (no, not from the galaxy far, far away).

What is Electrical Energy?

Electricity, put simply, is the flow of electrons from a certain object onto another object. Electrons are negatively charged particles. Normally they are a part of atoms, orbiting around the nucleus, but when given sufficient energy, they escape the orbit and become 'free electrons (makes sense, because they are 'free' from atoms).' Normally these electrons would wander around aimlessly in their own will, but if given a path (circuit) and a push (voltage), they will flow together in a uniform manner. This flow of electrons? is called electric current, and the energy that the electrons carry with them is called 'electrical energy.'

This electrical energy can be used to perform various tasks, i.e. be converted into different forms. To convert the electrical energy into another form of energy, you connect the electric circuit to a 'load.' The way loads convert electrical energy into useful energy can be compared to a mill fitted with a water turbine. The turbine is placed in the path the water takes in flowing the water is forced to push through the turbine as it flows, consequently turning the turbine. In a similar manner, electrons forces its way through the load and yields a portion of its energy in the process. In light bulbs, the electrons make the filament glow and produce light in radios, the electrons activate the amplifier that produces sound.

How Did We Come to Discover Electricity?

Believe it or not, electricity has been a familiar phenomenon to us since long before the wheel was invented. Our cave-dwelling ancestors were constantly seeing a bright flash thundering down from the sky, which we call lightning, which is a gigantic electric spark formed from the brushing of charged clouds against one another. Obviously the energy in lightning could hardly be harnessed and turned into useful energy, but at least they did start forest fires and throw at our starving ancestors a few pieces of burnt (or cooked, depending on how you look at it) animals.

The first scientific observation of electricity was made by a man named Thales, who lived in Ancient Greece some 2,600 years ago. While rubbing woolen clothe against a piece of Amber (an orange-yellowish jewel), he discovered that the rubbed Amber attracted bits of feather and thread on its own. He had observed for the first time a phenomenon called 'static electricity,' which is when an object accumulates a certain charge (negative or positive), and releases the charge build-up in a single spark. In fact, static electricity can be tested at home: rub an inflated rubber balloon against your hair for a few minutes, and lift the balloon slightly – you will see locks of your hair standing up and sticking to the balloon (doesn't work with wet or excessively short hair). This is because the rubbing charged the balloon negatively and your hair positively, and the release of charge causes the balloon and your hair to stick to one another.

The phenomenon of static electricity was virtually forgotten until in the late 18^th Century, when European scientists began researching for methods to store the static electricity and release it when necessary. A Dutchman named Leyden, for example, invented the Leyden Jar, which stored static electricity by means of a silver foil which surrounded the bottle. This static electricity yielded all its energy in a single spark upon contact with two metal electrodes, and was used to conduct a variety of electricity experiments. However, the energy output was invariably low, besides the fact that the energy had to release in a single spark, and not in a continuous, regular stream.

The electric current as we know (a regular flow of electrons) finally became available in 1800, when an Italian named Alessandro Volta invented the very first method of producing an electric current. He alternatingly stacked zinc and copper plates with saltwater-soaked paper in between every two metal plates the chemical reaction between the metals and the ions in saltwater produced a steady flow of electrons – an electric current.

Yet another landmark discovery was made in 1830. The English scientist Michael Faraday published his Law of Electromagnetic Induction, talking about the interaction of a magnetic field with electric circuit. He stated that a continuous magnetic disruption in an electric coil would produce the movement of electrons in the coil in other words, a magnet sliding in and out of a coil of wire (or a coil of wire rotating around a large magnet) would produce an electric current. This was the discovery of the Electric Generator, which ensured that scientists would no longer have to rely on the conventional Voltaic Battery (low in output, and lasting a short time only) for electricity.

Despite such breakthrough, electricity was still not readily available for the greater population – electric generators were expensive, and only scientific laboratories or telephone companies could afford their own. The majority of the people didn't need electricity anyway, because almost none of their household appliances ran on electricity. Enter Thomas Edison. Throughout the late 19^th Century and into early 20^th Century, this illustrious inventor came up with hundreds of creative electricity-run items, such as the gramophone, movie camera, light bulb, and carbon microphone, that were useful and not too costly, hence making our lives far more affluent. But more importantly, he drew the first plan of central electricity generation: rather than individual houses, companies or labs producing their own electricity, it would be far more efficient and cheaper to have a central power plant generate electricity and send it across to customers via a grid of wire networks. This was the first construction of a ?Power Plant? on its own, and the creation of the National Grid System – both of which survive to the day. Overall, Edison rendered electricity not only more familiar, but more accessible and feasible to the majority of the population, and became foundation of the virtually electricity-run society our world is today.

How is Electricity Produced?

Electricity is generated by an electric generator. The generator typically works by rotating a bar of magnet within a coil of wire. The electric current that comes to flow in the coil as a consequence is induced into a wire, and there transported to houses and factories to be used. Because the magnet needs to be rotated continuously, generation of electricity in a power plant often breaks down to how to convert available energy resources into a rotational kinetic movement, which can then be used to operate the generator and produce an electric current. For the next six or so reports I will write on the different types of energy resources we use to generate electricity, and explain their history and how they yield energy, as well as discussing their efficiency, sustainability, and whether they are feasible energy sources on the long run. See you next week!

 

Citation of Images:

Bill Gross. Thomas Edison. Digital image. Vision Without Execution Is Hallucination. Linkedin.com, 2014. Web. 12 July 2014.

Brian, Marshall. The Voltaic Pile. Digital image. How Batteries Work. Howstuffworks, 1998. Web. 11 July 2014.

Layden Jar. Digital image. Layden Jar. Hiddencity, 2011. Web. 11 July 2014.

Berg, Aaron J. Schematic of an Electric Generator. Digital image. ELECTRICAL GENERATOR. Reality Unknown, 4 June 2011. Web. 11 July 2014.