Electricity is all around us–powering technology like our cell phones, computers, lights,

soldering irons, and air conditioners. It’s tough to escape it in our modern world. Even
when you try to escape electricity, it’s still at work throughout nature, from the lightning
in a thunderstorm to the synapses inside our body. But what exactly is electricity? This
is a very complicated question, and as you dig deeper and ask more questions, there
really is not a definitive answer, only abstract representations of how electricity interacts
with our surroundings.
Electricity is a natural phenomenon that occurs throughout nature and takes many
different forms. In this tutorial we’ll focus on current electricity: the stuff that powers our
electronic gadgets. Our goal is to understand how electricity flows from a power source
through wires, lighting up LEDs, spinning motors, and powering our communication
devices.
Electricity is briefly defined as the flow of electric charge, but there’s so much behind
that simple statement. Where do the charges come from? How do we move them?
Where do they move to? How does an electric charge cause mechanical motion or
make things light up? So many questions! To begin to explain what electricity is we
need to zoom way in, beyond the matter and molecules, to the atoms that make up
everything we interact with in life.
This tutorial builds on some basic understanding of physics, force, energy, atoms,
and fields in particular. We’ll gloss over the basics of each of those physics concepts,
but it may help to consult other sources as well.

Going Atomic
To understand the fundamentals of electricity, we need to begin by focusing in on
atoms, one of the basic building blocks of life and matter. Atoms exist in over a hundred
different forms as chemical elements like hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and copper. Atoms
of many types can combine to make molecules, which build the matter we can
physically see and touch.
Atoms are tiny, stretching at a max to about 300 picometers long (that’s 3x10-10 or
0.0000000003 meters). A copper penny (if it actually were made of 100% copper) would
have 3.2x1022 atoms (32,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms) of copper inside it.
Even the atom isn’t small enough to explain the workings of electricity. We need to dive
down one more level and look in on the building blocks of atoms: protons, neutrons, and
electrons.

Building Blocks of Atoms

An atom is built with a combination of three distinct particles: electrons, protons, and
neutrons. Each atom has a center nucleus, where the protons and neutrons are densely
packed together. Surrounding the nucleus are a group of orbiting electrons.
Power consumption accelerated again in 2017 (+2.6%)

Electricity consumption globally increases at a faster pace than other energy vectors
due to electrification of energy uses. Most of the 2017 increase in global electricity
consumption occurred in Asia. As in 2016, the electricity consumption growth in China,
amid an industrial recovery and despite strong energy efficiency improvements,
contributed to more than half of the world electricity consumption rebound. Power
demand also grew in Japan for the first time since 2013, in India, Indonesia and South
Korea.
Electricity consumption in the United States, which had remained broadly stable since
2011 due to energy efficiency improvements, declined for the second year in a row in
2017, whereas it rose in Canada.
It remained stable in the European Union (increase in Italy, Poland, Germany and
Spain, decline in the UK) and grew in Turkey.
Electricity consumption also increased significantly in Iran and in Egypt.
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic-consumption-data.html
https://www.kensaq.com/web?qo=semQuery&ad=semA&q=what%20is%20electricity
%20made
%20of&o=766169&ag=fw&an=google_s&rch=intl140&gclid=CjwKCAjwwo7cBRBwEiwA
MEoXPOJFYCl_anzM5e5-ZljlQT2FJHoc0Kb1DoDRM-
kYGLSMcEw86cPtuBoCgxwQAvD_BwE
https://www.thehindu.com/features/kids/Importance-of-electricity/article16544961.ece
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-electricity-4019643
Electricity consumption globally increases at a faster pace than other energy vectors
due to electrification of energy uses. Most of the 2017 increase in global electricity
consumption occurred in Asia. As in 2016, the electricity consumption growth in China,
amid an industrial recovery and despite strong energy efficiency improvements,
contributed to more than half of the world electricity consumption rebound. Power
demand also grew in Japan for the first time since 2013, in India, Indonesia and South
Korea.
Electricity consumption in the United States, which had remained broadly stable since
2011 due to energy efficiency improvements, declined for the second year in a row in
2017, whereas it rose in Canada.
It remained stable in the European Union (increase in Italy, Poland, Germany and
Spain, decline in the UK) and grew in Turkey.
Electricity consumption also increased significantly in Iran and in Egypt
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic-consumption-data.html
Hydroelectric power, electricity produced from generators driven by turbines that
convert thepotential energy of falling or fast-flowing water into mechanical energy.
Hydroelectric power plants are usually located in dams that impound rivers, thereby
raising the level of the water behind the dam and creating as high a head as is feasible.
The potential power that can be derived from a volume of water is directly proportional
to the working head, so that a high-head installation requires a smaller volume of water
than a low-head installation to produce an equal amount of power. In some dams, the
powerhouse is constructed on one flank of the dam, part of the dam being used as a
spillway over which excess water is discharged in times of flood. Where the river flows
in a narrow steep gorge, the powerhouse may be located within the dam itself.
https://www.britannica.com/science/hydroelectric-power
Solar power is produced by collecting sunlight and converting it into electricity. This is
done by using solar panels, which are large flat panels made up of many individual solar
cells. It is most often used in remote locations, although it is becoming more popular in
urban areas as well. This page contains articles that explore advances in solar energy
technology.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/solar-power/
https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-power
Nuclear power, electricity generated by power plants that derive their heat from fission
in a nuclear reactor. Except for the reactor, which plays the role of a boiler in a fossil-
fuel power plant, a nuclear power plant is similar to a large coal-fired power plant, with
pumps, valves, steam generators, turbines, electric generators, condensers, and
associated equipment.

The nuclear power industry went through a period of remarkable growth until about

1990, when the portion of electricity generated by nuclear power reached a high of 17

percent. That percentage remained stable through the 1990s and began to decline

slowly around the turn of the 21st century, primarily because of the fact that total

electricity generation grew faster than electricity from nuclear power while other sources

of energy (particularly coal and natural gas) were able to grow more quickly to meet the

rising demand. This trend appears likely to continue well into the 21st century.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), a statistical arm of the U.S. Department of

Energy, has projected that world electricity generation between 2005 and 2035 will
roughly double (from more than 15,000 terawatt-hours to 35,000 terawatt-hours) and

that generation from all energy sources except petroleum will continue to grow.