Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power was first used by the ancient Greeks to power their gristmills. The first hydroelectric plant in the US was built in Wisconsin in 1882. Hydroelectricity supplied 60% of the nation's power by 1900.

Electricity Today

Today humans are totally dependent on electricity to live. This is because electricity makes our lives easier. We use it for powering mostly everything. Thing such as computers, the television, lights. The computer is a big one people use them every day for just about everything. We use them for papers and projects for school or developing new technologies to improve civilization. About how many times do you use electricity in just one day? Just think about it when we have a temporary black out people don’t know what to do with themselves. Some people even flip the light switch even though there is no power they are just so use to it. Electricity has not really changed since it was discovered; the only thing that has really changed with electricity is how it is acquired. We are using wind to create power water (such as the Hoover dam) to generate electricity. Scientists still study and experiment to learn more about electricity. Right now, most of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal). The combustion of the fuel generates the flow of current electricity. The problem is that fossil fuels are nonrenewable resources and will eventually run out. If we want to keep using our televisions, air conditioners, microwave ovens, and computers, we need to find another way to make electricity. Scientists today are experimenting with alternate fuel sources like the sun, wind, water, and radioactive elements.

The picture shows human dependence on electricity, particularly the developed countries. The electric power grid id the most complex man- made networks in the world (far more complex than the internet).

The pictures are of the United States and another of the world at night. They show just how much we depend on electricity to live (this is most true for developed countries). There are so many lights on all over the Earth that when you see this picture you are amazed at how much electricity we actually use even at night. I know that I did not, I had no clue that there were so many people using electricity all over the world that’s just something that you don’t think about.

Image taken from http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect12/Sect12_5.html

Oil

Crude oil was first utilized by humans more than 2500 years ago. It was not widely used to power anything until cars were invented.

History Video

A General History

Though he did not name it, the first person to discuss electricity as modern man knows it was the Italian physician, Girolamo Cardano. he wrote of it in his 1550 work, De Subtilitate, and pointed out the difference between what would now be called electrical and magnetic forces. His work was supplemented by William Gilbert's 1600 paper De Magnete, in which he coined the word electricus, from the greek word electron, meaning amber.

The word 'electricity' is fist ascribed to sir Thomas Browne in his 1846 book, Pseudodoxica Epidemica. In it, he attributes various strange happenstances and myths to the phenomenon and attempts to define it through empirical testing. The book has gone through no less than six separate editions, and is still sold today, as well as having been published online:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudodoxia.shtml

Other pioneers of electricity include: Pieter van Musschenbroek, who invented the Leiden Jar (one of the first capacitors, named after the Leiden Unviersity, where he worked) in 1745, and William Watson, who discovered in 1747 that a static discharge is equivalent to an electric current,

Benjamin Franklin, in addition to his 1752 'Kite Experiment', also is credited with the invention of electrical attractors, or lightning rods. He and Philadelphia colleague Ebenezer Kinnersley are credited with the discovery of the positive and negative natures of electrical charges.

These observations and experiments allowed another gamut of development: the works of Michael Faraday (the inventor of electrolysis), Luigi Galvani (who discovered that muscles in the body produce electricity and laid down the foundations for the first electrochemical cell), Andre-Marie Ampere (the discoverer of electromagnetism) , Alessandro Volta (creator of the voltaic cell and thus the first modern chemical battery), and Georg Simon Ohm (the discoverer of electrical resistance). The accomplishments of these great intellectuals is evident in modern electrical technology: all have had units and concepts named after them (the Faraday constant, galvanic current and corrosion, and the Amp, Volt and Ohm).

SOURCE: 'The E behind Everything: How Electricity Came To Be' IEEE Virtual Museum.
http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/exhibit/exhibit.php?id=159249&lid=1

How Electricity Works

Every atom contains one or more electrons. Electrons have a negative charge. The electrons in metal can detach from their atoms and move around. This makes it easy for electricity to flow through the material, so these are "electrical conductors". Electricity needs a conductor and a generator to work.