Electricity Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Electricity is a term for energy that can be present or flow as an electric charge. It is visible in lightening flashes. Electric eels, electric catfish, and electric rays use electricity for hunting or defense. Electricity occurs at the subatomic level in the form of electrons that orbit the nuclei of atoms. Electrons form force fields to hold atoms together as solids.

Electricity can be static or conducting. Static electricity occurs when there is an imbalance between materials that are positively and negatively charged with electrons. Electric currents are a flow of electric charges through a conducting material, such as copper, and can be harnessed for useful purposes. The production of conducted electricity, its use in electronics, and in electric power motors is one of the great developments of the 20th century, and has created enormous changes in human life.

The environmental impact of electricity has been enormous. The invention of the electric light bulb almost destroyed the Standard Oil Company created by John D. Rockefeller. The advent of kerosene oil for lamps probably saved whales from extinction because it ended much of the demand for whale oil used for decades to light lamps.

To supply electricity, electrical generating plants had to be built. The power to turn an electrical dynamo came from water power. Great numbers of the dams built in the United States and around the world since 1900 have been for the purpose of generating hydroelectricity. The whole Tennessee Valley Authority system was designed not only for flood control, but also for the generation of electricity. Other famous dams such as Hoover Dam and the Boulder Dam were built for supplying water for irrigation, but also for electrical generation. The dams have had an enormous environmental impact on industrial, urban, and suburban growth.

Other energy sources that supply electrical power can also be created by the heating of water that creates steam for turning the turbines of electrical dynamos. Coal, gas, oil, and atomic power are the principal fuels. These fuels all have ecological consequences. Coal mining’s environmental impact is considerable, because the vast quantity of coal needed for electrical generators is often the cheaper kind that is produced by strip mining. The cleanest option is likely natural gas, but it too has a negative impact as the methane in natural gas is converted into carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming and the buildup of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is at the same time the cleanest and the dirtiest of the fuels used for powering electrical power plants. The immediate impact of nuclear fuel is insignificant unless a disaster such as Chernobyl occurs. Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled in some cases; however, it is often recycled into weaponsgrade nuclear material. If it is to be disposed of as waste, there are enormous difficulties in finding a place that will be safe for thousands of years from leaks that could poison the environment over vast areas for centuries.

Electrical transmission lines crisscross the more developed areas of the world, marring the natural beauty; however, they have also brought electricity to rural homes and a better way of life by enabling contact with population centers via radio, television, and Internet connections. Electric cars were popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the low cost of gasoline and the greater range of gasoline engines pushed consumers into buying gasolineoperated automobiles. However, since the 1970s, the development of electric-powered vehicles from personal golf carts to larger cars has proceeded steadily to replace gasoline engines.

Bibliography:

Laurie Burnham, , Renewable Energy: Sources for Fuels and Electricity (Island Press, 1992);
Electricity and the Environment (International Atomic Energy Agency, 1991);
Bureau of Naval Personnel, Basic Electricity (Barnes & Noble, 2004);
Van Balkenburg. Basic Electricity (Thomson Delmar Learning, 1995).