Chapter 1: Energy - What Is It? Energy causes things to happen around us. Look out the window.

During the day, the sun gives out light and heat energy. At night, street lamps use electrical energy to light our way. When a car drives by, it is being powered by gasoline, a type of stored energy. The food we eat contains energy. We use that energy to work and play. We learned the definition of energy in the introduction: "Energy Is the Ability to Do Work." Energy can be found in a number of different forms. It can be chemical energy, electrical energy, heat (thermal energy), light (radiant energy), mechanical energy, and nuclear energy. Stored and Moving Energy Energy makes everything happen and can be divided into two types: Stored energy is called potential energy. Moving energy is called kinetic energy. With a pencil, try this example to know the two types of energy. Put the pencil at the edge of the desk and push it off to the floor. The moving pencil uses kinetic energy. Now, pick up the pencil and put it back on the desk. You used your own energy to lift and move the pencil. Moving it higher than the floor adds energy to it. As it rests on the desk, the pencil has potential energy. The higher it is, the further it could fall. That means the pencil has more potential energy. How Do We Measure Energy? Energy is measured in many ways. One of the basic measuring blocks is called a Btu. This stands for British thermal unit and was invented by, of course, the English. Btu is the amount of heat energy it takes to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit, at sea level. One Btu equals about one blue-tip kitchen match. One thousand Btus roughly equals: One average candy bar or 4/5 of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It takes about 2,000 Btus to make a pot of coffee. Energy also can be measured in joules. Joules sounds exactly like the word jewels, as in diamonds and emeralds. A thousand joules is equal to a British thermal unit. 1,000 joules = 1 Btu So, it would take 2 million joules to make a pot of coffee. The term "joule" is named after an English scientist James Prescott Joule who lived from 1818 to 1889. He discovered that heat is a type of energy. One joule is the amount of energy needed to lift something weighing one pound to a height of nine inches. So, if you lifted a five-pound sack of sugar

from the floor to the top of a counter (27 inches), you would use about 15 joules of energy. Around the world, scientists measure energy in joules rather than Btus. It's much like people around the world using the metric system of meters and kilograms, instead of the English system of feet and pounds.

Like in the metric system, you can have kilojoules "kilo" means 1,000. 1,000 joules = 1 kilojoule = 1 Btu A piece of buttered toast contains about 315 kilojoules (315,000 joules) of energy. With that energy you could: Jog for 6 minutes Bicycle for 10 minutes Walk briskly for 15 minutes Sleep for 1-1/2 hours Run a car for 7 seconds at 80 kilometers per hour (about 50 miles per hour) Light a 60-watt light bulb for 1-1/2 hours Or lift that sack of sugar from the floor to the counter 21,000 times! Changing Energy Energy can be transformed into another sort of energy. But it cannot be created AND it cannot be destroyed. Energy has always existed in one form or another. Here are some changes in energy from one form to another. Stored energy in a flashlight's batteries becomes light energy when the flashlight is turned on. Food is stored energy. It is stored as a chemical with potential energy. When your body uses that stored energy to do work, it becomes kinetic energy. If you overeat, the energy in food is not "burned" but is stored as potential energy in fat cells. When you talk on the phone, your voice is transformed into electrical energy, which passes over wires (or is transmitted through the air). The phone on the other end changes the electrical energy into sound energy through the speaker. A car uses stored chemical energy in gasoline to move. The engine changes the chemical energy into heat and kinetic energy to power the car. A toaster changes electrical energy into heat and light energy. (If you look into the toaster, you'll see the glowing wires.) A television changes electrical energy into light and sound energy. Food Energy Heat Energy Chapter 2: What Is Electricity? Electricity figures everywhere in our lives. Electricity lights up our homes, cooks our food, powers our computers, television sets, and other electronic devices. Electricity from batteries keeps our cars running and makes our flashlights shine in the dark.

Here's something you can do to see the importance of electricity. Take a walk through your school, house or apartment and write down all the different appliances, devices and machines that use electricity. You'll be amazed at how many things we use each and every day that depend on electricity. But what is electricity? Where does it come from? How does it work? Before we understand all that, we need to know a little bit about atoms and their structure. All matter is made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of smaller particles. The three main particles making up an atom are the proton, the neutron and the electron. Electrons spin around the center, or nucleus, of atoms, in the same way the moon spins around the earth. The nucleus is made up of neutrons and protons. Electrons contain a negative charge, protons a positive charge. Neutrons are neutral they have neither a positive nor a negative charge. There are many different kinds of atoms, one for each type of element. An atom is a single part that makes up an element. There are 118 different known elements that make up every thing! Some elements like oxygen we breathe are essential to life. Each atom has a specific number of electrons, protons and neutrons. But no matter how many particles an atom has, the number of electrons usually needs to be the same as the number of protons. If the numbers are the same, the atom is called balanced, and it is very stable. So, if an atom had six protons, it should also have six electrons. The element with six protons and six electrons is called carbon. Carbon is found in abundance in the sun, stars, comets, atmospheres of most planets, and the food we eat. Coal is made of carbon; so are diamonds. Some kinds of atoms have loosely attached electrons. An atom that loses electrons has more protons than electrons and is positively charged. An atom that gains electrons has more negative particles and is negatively charge. A "charged" atom is called an "ion." Electrons can be made to move from one atom to another. When those electrons move between the atoms, a current of electricity is created. The electrons move from one atom to another in a "flow." One electron is attached and another electron is lost. This chain is similar to the fire fighter's bucket brigades in olden times. But instead of passing one bucket from the start of the line of people to the other end, each person would have a bucket of water to pour from one bucket to another. The result was a lot of spilled water and not enough water to douse the fire. It is a situation that's very similar to electricity passing along a wire and a circuit. The charge is passed from atom to atom when electricity is "passed." Scientists and engineers have learned many ways to move electrons off of atoms. That means that when you add up the electrons and protons, you would wind up with one more proton instead of being balanced. Since all atoms want to be balanced, the atom that has been "unbalanced" will look for a free electron to fill the place of the missing one. We say that this unbalanced atom has a "positive charge" (+) because it has too many protons.

Since it got kicked off, the free electron moves around waiting for an unbalanced atom to give it a home. The free electron charge is negative, and has no proton to balance it out, so we say that it has a "negative charge" (-). So what do positive and negative charges have to do with electricity? Scientists and engineers have found several ways to create large numbers of positive atoms and free negative electrons. Since positive atoms want negative electrons so they can be balanced, they have a strong attraction for the electrons. The electrons also want to be part of a balanced atom, so they have a strong attraction to the positive atoms. So, the positive attracts the negative to balance out. The more positive atoms or negative electrons you have, the stronger the attraction for the other. Since we have both positive and negative charged groups attracted to each other, we call the total attraction "charge." Energy also can be measured in joules. Joules sounds exactly like the word jewels, as in diamonds and emeralds. A thousand joules is equal to a British thermal unit. When electrons move among the atoms of matter, a current of electricity is created. This is what happens in a piece of wire. The electrons are passed from atom to atom, creating an electrical current from one end to other, just like in the picture. Electricity is conducted through some things better than others do. Its resistance measures how well something conducts electricity. Some things hold their electrons very tightly. Electrons do not move through them very well. These things are called insulators. Rubber, plastic, cloth, glass and dry air are good insulators and have very high resistance. Other materials have some loosely held electrons, which move through them very easily. These are called conductors. Most metals like copper, aluminum or steel are good conductors. Where Does the Word 'Electricity' Come From? Electrons, electricity, electronic and other words that begin with "electr..." all originate from the Greek word "elektor," meaning "beaming sun." In Greek, "elektron" is the word for amber. Amber is a very pretty goldish brown "stone" that sparkles orange and yellow in sunlight. Amber is actually fossilized tree sap! It's the stuff used in the movie "Jurassic Park." Millions of years ago insects got stuck in the tree sap. Small insects which had bitten the dinosaurs, had blood with DNA from the dinosaurs in the insect's bodies, which were now fossilized in the amber. Ancient Greeks discovered that amber behaved oddly - like attracting feathers - when rubbed by fur or other objects. They didn't know what it was that caused this phenomenon. But the Greeks had discovered one of the first examples of static electricity (see Chapter 3). The Latin word, electricus, means to "produce from amber by friction." So, we get our English word electricity from Greek and Latin words that were about amber. Chapter 3: Resistance and Static Electricity As we have learned, some kinds of atoms contain loosely attached electrons. Electrons can be made to move easily from one atom to another. When those electrons move among the atoms of matter, a current of electricity is created. Take a piece of wire. The electrons are passed from atom to atom, creating an electrical current from one end to the other. Electrons are

very, very small. A single copper penny contains more than 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1x1022) electrons. Electricity "flows" or moves through some things better than others do. The measurement of how well something conducts electricity is called its resistance. Resistance in wire depends on how thick and how long it is, and what it's made of. The thickness of wire is called its gauge. The smaller the gauge, the bigger the wire. Some of the largest thicknesses of regular wire is gauge 1. Different types of metal are used in making wire. You can have copper wire, aluminum wire, even steel wire. Each of these metals has a different resistance; how well the metal conducts electricity. The lower the resistance of a wire, the better it conducts electricity. Copper is used in many wires because it has a lower resistance than many other metals. The wires in your walls, inside your lamps and elsewhere are usually copper. A piece of metal can be made to act like a heater. When an electrical current occurs, the resistance causes friction and the friction causes heat. The higher the resistance, the hotter it can get. So, a coiled wire high in resistance, like the wire in a hair dryer, can be very hot. Some things conduct electricity very poorly. These are called insulators. Rubber is a good insulator, and that's why rubber is used to cover wires in an electric cord. Glass is another good insulator. If you look at the end of a power line, you'll see that it is attached to some bumpy looking things. These are glass insulators. They keep the metal of the wires from touching the metal of the towers. Static Electricity Another type of electrical energy is static electricity. Unlike current electricity that moves, static electricity stays in one place. Try this experiment... Rub a balloon filled with air on a wool sweater or on your hair. Then hold it up to a wall. The balloon will stay there by itself. Tie strings to the ends of two balloons. Now rub the two balloons together, hold them by strings at the end and put them next to each other. They'll move apart. Rubbing the balloons gives them static electricity. When you rub the balloon it picks up extra electrons from the sweater or your hair and becomes slightly negatively charged. The negative charges in the single balloon are attracted to the positive charges in the wall. The two balloons hanging by strings both have negative charges. Negative charges always repel negative charges and positive always repels positive charges. So, the two balloons' negative charges "push" each other apart. Static electricity can also give you a shock. If you walk across a carpet, shuffling your feet and touching something made of metal, a spark can jump between you and the metal object. Shuffling your feet picks up additional electrons spread over your body. When you touch a metal doorknob or something with a

positive charge the electricity jumps across the small gap from your fingers just before you touch the metal knob. If you walk across a carpet and touch a computer case, you can damage the computer. One other type of static electricity is very spectacular. It's the lightning in a thunder and lightning storm. Clouds become negatively charged as ice crystals inside the clouds rub up against each other. Meanwhile, on the ground, the positive charge increases. The clouds get so highly charged that the electrons jump from the ground to the cloud, or from one cloud to another cloud. This causes a huge spark of static electricity in the sky that we call lightning. You can find out more about lightning at Web Weather for Kids www.ucar.edu/40th/webweather/ But What Is Static Electricity? You'll remember from Chapter 2 that the word "electricity" came from the Greek words "elektor," for "beaming sun" and "elektron," both words describing amber. Amber is fossilized tree sap millions of years old and has hardened as hard as a stone. Around 600 BCE (Before the Common Era) Greeks noticed a strange effect: When rubbing "elektron" against a piece of fur, the amber would start attracting particles of dust, feathers and straw. No one paid much attention to this "strange effect" until about 1600 when Dr. William Gilbert investigated the reactions of magnets and amber and discovered other objects can be made "electric." Gilbert said that amber acquired what he called "resinous electricity" when rubbed with fur. Glass, however, when rubbed with silk, acquired what he termed "vitreous electricity." He thought that electricity repeled the same kind and attracts the opposite kind of electricity. Gilbert and other scientists of that time thought that the friction actually created the electricity (their word for the electrical charge). In 1747, Benjamin Franklin in America and William Watson in England both reached the same conclusion. They said all materials possess a single kind of electrical "fluid." They didn't really know anything about atoms and electrons, so they called how it behaved a "fluid." They thought that this fluid can penetrate matter freely and couldn't be created or destroyed. The two men thought that the action of rubbing (like rubbing amber with fur) moves this unseen fluid from one thing to another, electrifying both. Franklin defined the fluid as positive and the lack of fluid as negative. Therefore, according to Franklin, the direction of flow was from positive to negative. Today, we know that the opposite is true. Electricity flows from negative to positive. Others took the idea even further saying this that two fluids are involved. They said items with the same fluid attract each other. And opposite types of fluid in objects will make them repel each other. All of this was only partially right. This is how scientific theories develop. Someone thinks of why something occurs and then proposes an explanation. It can take centuries sometime to find the real truth. Instead of electricity being a fluid, it is the movement of the charged particles between the objects... the two objects are really exchanging electrons. Chapter 4: Circuits

Electrons with a negative charge, can't "jump" through the air to a positively charged atom. They have to wait until there is a link or bridge between the negative area and the positive area. We usually call this bridge a "circuit." When a bridge is created, the electrons begin moving quickly. Depending on the resistance of the material making up the bridge, they try to get across as fast as they can. If you're not careful, too many electrons can go across at one time and destroy the "bridge" or the circuit, in the process. In Chapter 3, we learned about electrons and the attraction between positive and negative charges. We also learned that we can create a bridge called a "circuit" between the charges. We can limit the number of electrons crossing over the "circuit," by letting only a certain number through at a time. And we can make electricity do something for us while they are on their way. For example, we can "make" the electrons "heat" a filament in a bulb, causing it to glow and give off light. When we limit the number of electrons that can cross over our circuit, we say we are giving it "resistance". We "resist" letting all the electrons through. This works something like a tollbooth on a freeway bridge. Copper wire is just one type of bridge we use in circuits. Before electrons can move far, however, they can collide with one of the atoms along the way. This slows them down or even reverses their direction. As a result, they lose energy to the atoms. This energy appears as heat, and the scattering is a resistance to the current. Think of the bridge as a garden hose. The current of electricity is the water flowing in the hose and the water pressure is the voltage of a circuit. The diameter of the hose is the determining factor for the resistance. Current refers to the movement of charges. In an electrical circuit electrons move from the negative pole to the positive. If you connected the positive pole of an electrical source to the negative pole, you create a circuit. This charge changes into electrical energy when the poles are connected in a circuit similar to connecting the two poles on opposite ends of a battery. Along the circuit you can have a light bulb and an on-off switch. The light bulb changes the electrical energy into light and heat energy. Circuit Experiment As a boy, Thomas Edisonbuilt a small laboratory in his cellar. His early experiments helped develop a very inquisitive mind.

His whole life was spent thinking about how things work and dreaming up new inventions. The light bulb and movie projector are just two of dozens of inventions. You can build a very basic electrical circuit similar to what Edison may have crafted as a boy. And you can find out what happens when a current is "open" compared with when it's "closed." Here's What You need: Penlight bulb Flashlight battery Two 6" pieces of insulated wire (any kind will work) Tape to keep the wire on the end of the battery A small piece of thin flat metal to make a "switch" Small block of wood Here's What to Do To make a switch: Take the block of wood and stick one thumb tack in. Push the other thumbtack through the thin piece of flat metal. Push the thumb tack into the wood so that the piece of metal can touch the other thumb tack (see picture).

Connect the first piece of wire to a thumbtack on the switch. Place the light bulb in the center of this wire piece. Tape the end of the first piece of wire to one end of the battery. Tape your second piece of wire to the opposite end of the battery. Attach the end of your second piece of wire to the remaining thumbtack on the switch. You've created an electrical circuit. When you press the switch connecting the two thumbtacks, your circuit is "closed" and your current flows turning your light bulb on. When your switch is up, your circuit is "open" and your current can not flow turning your light bulb off, just like Thomas Edison's may have done. The number of electrons we are willing to let across the circuit at one time is called "current". We measure current using amperes, or "Amps". One AMP is defined as 6,250,000,000,000,000,000 (6.25 x 1018) electrons moving across your circuit every second! Since no one wants to remember such a big number, that big number is called a "coulomb," after the scientist Charles A Coulomb who helped discover what a current of electricity is. The amount of charge between the sides of the circuit is called "voltage." We measure Voltage in Volts. The word volt is named after another scientist, Alexader Volta, who built the world's first battery. You'll remember that back in Chapter 1, we defined energy as the "ability to do work." Well, one volt is defined as the amount of electrical charge needed to make one Coulomb (625,000,000,000,000,000,000 electrons) do one a specific amount of work which is labeled one joule. Joule is also named after a scientist, James Prescott Joule. Do you remember him from Chapter 2? Voltage, Current and Resistance are very important to circuits. If either voltage or current is too big you could break the circuit. But if either is too small, the circuit will not be able to work enough to be useful

to us. In the same way, if the resistance is too big none of the electrons would be able to get though at all, but if it were too small, they would rush though all at once breaking the circuit on their way. An Electrical Circuit (From humorist Dave Barry's book Dave Barry in Cyberspace) "Electricity is supplied by the wall socket, which is in turn connected to the electrical company via big overhead wires with squirrels running on them. "A question many people ask ... is, 'How come the squirrels don't get electrocuted?' To answer that question, we need to understand exactly what an electrical circuit is. "When you turn on a switch, electricity flows through the wire into the appliance, where it is converted via a process called electrolysis into tiny microwaves. These fly around inside the oven area until they locate the Hungry Hombre Heat 'n' Eat Hearty Burrito entree; they then signal the location to each other by slapping their tails in a distinctive pattern. The workers, or drones, then ... swarm around the queen; this causes the rapid warming that makes the entree edible and leads via amino acids, to digestion. "This is followed by grunting and flushing, with the outflow traveling via underground pipes to the sewage treatment plant, which in turn releases purified water into the river, where it is used to form waterfalls, which rotate the giant turbines that produce the electricity that flows through wires back to your appliance, thereby completing the circuit. "So we see that squirrels have nothing whatsoever to do with it. There is no need for you to worry about squirrels; believe me, they are not worrying about you." Please Note: THIS IS A JOKE!!! Parallel Circuits! When we have only one circuit that electrons can go through to get to the other side we call it a "series circuit."

If we were to set up another circuit next to the first one, we would have two circuits between the charges. We call these "parallel circuits" because they run parallel to each other. You can have as many parallel circuits as you want. Parallel circuits share the same voltage, but they allow more paths for the electricity to go over. This means that the total number of electrons that can get across (the current) can increase, without breaking either circuit. Electric Motors

An electric motor uses circuits wound round and round. These wound circuits are suspended between magnets. (We send a 'thank you' to How Stuff Works Website for their electric motor graphic.)

A motor works through electromagnetism. It has a coiled up wire (the circuit) that sits between the north and south poles of a magnet. When current flows through the coiled circuit, another magnetic field is produced. The north pole of the fixed magnet attracts the south pole of the coiled wire. The two north poles push away, or repulse, each other. The motor is set up in a way that attraction and repulsion spins the center section with the coiled wire. Chapter 5: Stored Energy and Batteries Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be saved in various forms. One way to store it is in the form of chemical energy in a battery. When connected in a circuit, a battery can produce electricity. If you look at a battery, it will have two ends &emdash; a positive terminal and a negative terminal. If you connect the two terminals with wire, a circuit is formed. Electrons will flow through the wire and a current of electricity is produced. Inside the battery, a reaction between the chemicals takes place. But reaction takes place only if there is a flow of electrons. Batteries can be stored for a long time and still work because the chemical process doesn't start until the electrons flow from the negative to the positive terminals through a circuit. How the Chemical Reaction Takes Place in a Battery A very simple modern battery is the zinc-carbon battery, called the carbon battery for short. This battery contains acidic material within and a rod of zinc down the center. Here's where knowing a little bit of chemistry helps. When zinc is inserted into an acid, the acid begins to eat away at the zinc, releasing hydrogen gas and heat energy. The acid molecules break up into its components: usually hydrogen and other atoms. The

process releases electrons from the Zinc atoms that combine with hydrogen ions in the acid to create the hydrogen gas. If a rod of carbon is inserted into the acid, the acid does nothing to it. But if you connect the carbon rod to the zinc rod with a wire, creating a circuit, electrons will begin to flow through the wire and combine with hydrogen on the carbon rod. This still releases a little bit of hydrogen gas but it makes less heat. Some of that heat energy is the energy that is flowing through the circuit. The energy in that circuit can now light a light bulb in a flashlight or turn a small motor. Depending on the size of the battery, it can even start an automobile. Eventually, the zinc rod is completely dissolved by the acid in the battery, and the battery can no longer be used. For a "great" on-line page about batteries, visit the Energizer Learning Center. Sidebar As we read in Chapter 1, Alessandro Volta created the first battery (also see our "Super Scientists" page). Volta called his battery the Voltaic Pile. He stacked alternating layers of zinc, cardboard soaked in salt water and silver. It looked like this: If you attach a wire to the top and bottom of the pile, you create an electric current because of the flow of electrons. Adding another layer will increase the amount of electricity produced by the pile. Different Types of Batteries Different types of batteries use different types of chemicals and chemical reactions. Some of the more common types of batteries are: Alkaline battery Used in Duracell and Energizer and other alkaline batteries. The electrodes are zinc and manganese-oxide. The electrolyte is an alkaline paste. Lead-acid battery These are used in automobiles. The electrodes are made of lead and lead-oxide with a strong acid as the electrolyte. Lithium battery These batteries are used in cameras for the flash bulb. They are made with lithium, lithium-iodide and lead-iodide. They can supply surges of electricity for the flash. Lithium-ion battery These batteries are found in laptop computers, cell phones and other high-use portable equipment. Nickel-cadmium or NiCad battery The electrodes are nickel-hydroxide and cadmium. The electrolyte is potassium-hydroxide. Zinc-carbon battery or standard carbon battery Zinc and carbon are used in all regular or standard AA, C and D dry-cell batteries. The electrodes are made of zinc and carbon, with a paste of acidic materials between them serving as the electrolyte. Chapter 6: Turbines, Generators and Power Plants As we learned in Chapter 2, electricity flows through wires to light our lamps, run TVs, computers and all other

electrical appliances. But where does the electricity come from? In this chapter, we'll learn how electricity is generated in a power plant. In the next few chapters, we'll learn about the various resources that are used to make the heat to produce electricity. InChapter 7, we'll learn how the electricity gets from the power plant to homes, school and businesses. Thermal power plants have big boilers that burn a fuel to make heat. A boiler is like a teapot on a stove. When the water boils, the steam comes through a tiny hole on the top of the spout. The moving steam makes a whistle that tells you the water has boiled. In a power plant, the water is brought to a boil inside the boiler, and the steam is then piped to the turbine through very thick pipes. In most boilers, wood, coal, oil or natural gas is burned in a firebox to make heat. Running through the fire box and above that hot fire are a series of pipes with water running through them. The heat energy is conducted into the metal pipes, heating the water in the pipes until it boils into steam. Water boils into steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius. The top picture on the right is of a small power plant located at Michigan State University. The black area to the left of the power plant is coal, the energy source that is burned to heat the water in the boilers of this plant. In the second picture to the left, you'll see the turbine and generator at MSU's power plant. The big pipe on the left side is the steam inlet. On the right side of the turbine is where the steam comes out. The steam is fed under high pressure to the turbine. The turbine spins and its shaft is connected to a turbogenerator that changes the mechanical spinning energy into electricity. The third picture on the right is of the turbine fan before it is placed inside the turbine housing. You can see a close-up of the turbine blades on the fourth picture. The turbine has many hundreds of blades that are turned at an angle like the blades of a fan. When the steam hits the blades they spin the turbine's shaft that is attached to the bottom of the blades. After the steam goes through the turbine, it usually goes to a cooling tower outside the where the steam cools off. It cools off and becomes water again. When the hot pipes come into contact with cool air, some water vapor in the air is heated and steam is given off above the cooling towers. That's why you see huge white clouds sometimes being given off by the cooling towers. It's not smoke, but is

water vapor or steam. This is not the same steam that is used inside the turbine. The cooled water then goes back into the boiler where it is heated again and the process repeats over and over. Most power plants in California use cleaner-burning natural gas to produce electricity. Others use oil or coal to heat the water. Nuclear power plants use nuclear energy to heat water to make electricity. Still others, called geothermal power plants, use steam or hot water found naturally below the earth's surface without burning a fuel. We'll learn about those energy sources in the next few chapters. How the Generator Works The turbine is attached by a shaft to the turbogenerator. The generator has a long, coiled wire on its shaft surrounded by a giant magnet. You can see the inside of the generator coil with all its wires in the picture on the right. The shaft that comes out of the turbine is connected to the generator. When the turbine turns, the shaft and rotor is turned. As the shaft inside the generator turns, an electric current is produced in the wire. The electric generator is converting mechanical, moving energy into electrical energy. The generator is based on the principle of "electromagnetic induction" discovered in 1831 by Michael Faraday, a British scientist. Faraday discovered that if an electric conductor, like a copper wire, is moved through a magnetic field, electric current will flow (or "be induced") in the conductor. So the mechanical energy of the moving wire is converted into the electric energy of the current that flows in the wire. The electricity produced by the generator then flows through huge transmission wires that link the power plants to our homes, school and businesses. If you want to learn about transmission lines, go to Chapter 7. All power plants have turbines and generators. Some turbines are turned by wind, some by water, some by steam. Chapter 7: Electricity Transmission System After electricity is produced at power plants it has to get to the customers that use the electricity. Our cities, towns, states and the entire country are criss-crossed with power lines that "carry" the electricity. As large generators spin, they produce electricity with a voltage of about 25,000 volts. A volt is a measurement of electromotive force in electricity. This is the electric force that "pushes" electrons around a circuit. "Volt" is named after Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist who invented the first battery.

The electricity first goes to a transformer at the power plant that boosts the voltage up to 400,000 volts. When electricity travels long distances it is better to have it at higher voltages. Another way of saying this is that electricity can be transferred more efficiently at high voltages. The long thick cables of transmission lines are made of copper or aluminum because they have a low resistance. You'll remember from Chapter 3 that the higher the resistance of a wire, the warmer it gets. So, some of the electrical energy is lost because it is changed into heat energy. High voltage transmission lines carry electricity long distances to a substation. The power lines go into substations near businesses, factories and homes. Here transformers change the very high voltage electricity back into lower voltage electricity. From these substations (like in the photo to the right), electricity in different power levels is used to run factories, streetcars and mass transit, light street lights and stop lights, and is sent to your neighborhood. In your neighborhood, another small transformer mounted on pole (see picture) or in a utility box converts the power to even lower levels to be used in your house. The voltage is eventually reduced to 220 volts for larger appliances, like stoves and clothes dryers, and 110 volts for lights, TVs and other smaller appliances. Rather than over-head lines, some new distribution lines are underground. The power lines are protected from the weather, which can cause line to break. Have you ever seen what happens after an ice storm? The picture on the right shows high voltage towers that crumpled from the weight of ice during a 1998 ice storm that hit Canada and parts of the United States. More than 1,000 high voltage towers and 30,000 wooden utility poles were destroyed in Canada by the storm. Close to 1.4 million people in Quebec and 230,000 in Ontario were without electricity. In many places, power not fully restored for up to a week. Weather people called it the most destructive storm in Canadian history. When electricity enters your home, it must pass through a meter. A utility company worker reads the meter so the company will know how much electricity you used and can bill you for the cost. After being metered, the electricity goes through a fuse box into your home. The fuse box protects the house in case of problems. When a fuse (or a circuit breaker) "blows" or "trips" something is wrong with an appliance or something was short- circuited.