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Electricity production began in 1881 with hydroelectric and coal power. Other methods include natural gas, oil, nuclear, solar, tidal, wind, and geothermal. Fossil fuels account for 68%, nuclear 15%, hydropower 16%, and renewables less than 1%. Nuclear fusion is the ideal method, but no experiment has produced more energy than consumed.
Mankind has been producing electricity on an industrial scale since 1881. The first power plants used hydroelectric power and coal power. Since then, other methods of generating energy have been introduced: natural gas, oil, nuclear and small amounts of energy generated by solar, tidal, wind and geothermal sources. In 2006, about 15% of world energy production was through nuclear power, 16% through hydropower, 68% through fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), and less than 1% through renewables ( solar, wind, tidal).
Power generation involves converting thermal energy, such as burning oil, into mechanical energy or mechanical energy, such as the moving blades of a windmill, into electrical energy, using a generator. Even in the case of an advanced energy source such as nuclear power, the heat from the fission nuclei is used to heat water, which turns a turbine and provides electricity.
Energy has been generated in large quantities since the Industrial Revolution, when it was used to run everything from power looms to chemical synthesis plants. Since then, humanity’s thirst for electricity has increased exponentially and we have resorted to all possible methods for energy production.
Especially since the 1980s, the Western world has tried to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and increase the use of renewable energy, but with little success. The two main problems regarding the use of fossil fuel energy have been the possible financing of terrorists and the release of greenhouse gases through combustion. Man-made greenhouse gases have been cited as a major cause of global warming.
Alternative methods of energy generation proposed thus far have been inventive, but insufficient to phase the world off fossil fuels. Since the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the public, especially in the United States, has been reluctant to fully support nuclear power, even though it may make a comeback.
The ideal method of generating energy may be nuclear fusion, also the source of solar energy. In nuclear fusion, atomic nuclei combine together to release binding energy. Unfortunately, no nuclear fusion experiment created by scientists to date has produced more energy than it has consumed.
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