Electric Power Generation

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Some of the materials in this document have been used with permission from the KidWind Project.

Why Isn’t Electricity Listed In This Table?

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Electricity Is An Energy CarrierBlack Rock Solar Array at

Pyramid Lake Museum

Lump of Coal

Spring Valley Wind Farm in Nevada 3

Common Energy Carriers

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Electric Power Generation Plant

Frank A. Tracy Generating StationNatural Gas-Fueled Power Plant 17 Miles East of Reno.

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How Does Electricity Get To Your Home?

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Step 1- Power Plant and Generator

Mohave Generating Station, Coal-Fueled Power Plant in

Laughlin, Nevada

Generator

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1. Heat is made when fossil fuels are burned.

2. Heat turns water into steam.

3. The steam makes turbine blades and shaft spin.

4. The generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy using magnetic fields around a metal conductor.

5. Before reusing, the water must cool. It is pumped to the top of a cooling tower, broken into drops. Up to 2% of water evaporates.

Thermal (Steam) Turbine Power Plant

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Transforming Energy – Thermal Power Plant

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Step 2 – Step-Up Transformer

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Step 3 – High Voltage Transmission Lines

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Step 5 – Step-Down Substation

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Step 6 – Distribution Lines

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Step 7: Service Drop

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Step 8 – Service Panel

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Step 9 – Home Wiring, Outlets and Switches

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Electricity Is An Energy Carrier

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Does All of Your Electricity Come from Your Local Power

Plant?

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Other sources of steam for thermal power plants

Nuclear Geothermal

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Solar Thermal Collector

These high-temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are used for electric power production with steam turbine power plants. 

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Hydro and Wind Turbines

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Solar Power

TMCC solar array built by Black Rock Solar

Numana Fish Hatchery array built by Black Rock Solar

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Electricity Consumption By Economic Sector 2010

U.S. Energy Information Administration / Annual Energy Review 2009

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Tradeoffs: Environmental Impact ofNon-Renewable Energy

Sources

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Hydropower

Lake Mead has provided water for Hoover Dam since 1935. Does this

look like a renewable or non-renewable energy source?

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Coal Mining

Coal companies also mine coal from mountains through a process called mountaintop removal mining where the top of a mountain is removed to extract the coal. Waste is disposed in nearby valleys and streams.

Surface mining for coal – look familiar?

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Coal Burning

Great Smog of 1952 in London killed 4,075 people. Most victims died from

respiratory or cardiovascular problems.

China’s air pollution has cut life expectancy by an average of 5.5 years in the north of

the country and caused higher rates of lung cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

Reno, with an unhealthy layer of

smog.

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Natural Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing or “Fracking”

A homeowner in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania, holds up a glass of tap

water containing high levels of methane, a concern for those who live

near fracking sites.

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Natural gas fire in San Francisco, CA in 2010. Killed 4 people, injured dozens of others, and leveled 37 homes.

This natural gas rig burning out of control in the Gulf of Mexico caught on fire July 23rd 2013.

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Tar Sands

The price of oil sands – devastated landscapes in

Canada.

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Nuclear Power

Following a major earthquake, a 50 ft. tsunami disabled the power supply and

cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan, causing a nuclear accident on March 11, 2011. All three cores largely melted in the first three days. Nuclear

reactors were leaking into the ocean after this disaster.

This is what happens to nuclear waste.

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