Energy conversion involved in generation of electric power
lenemasWhat do you imagine when you hear "electric power generation"? I suppose, in the case of thermal power plant, it would be natural gas or coal. For nuclear power plant, it should be urane. The process of power generation converts these fuels into electric power.
This post summarizes the energy conversion involved in the electric poewr generation.
As representative, thermal, geothermal, wind, and solar power plants are considered. The process of energy conversion is summaized below in a figure.
* Sorry that this figure is in Japanese, but will be translated into English.
火力：thermal, 地熱：geothermal, 風力：wind, 太陽光：solar
化学エネルギー：chemical enregy
光エネルギー：solar energy
熱：heat
運動エネルギー：kinetic energy
電気エネルギー：electric power
Thermal power plant
Thermal power plant proceeds via the following steps:
1. Combustion of fuels
= oxidazing the fuel to arrange atoms, whereby the heat is extracted.
This process converts the chemical energy into heat.
2. Evaporation of water
= giving the latent and sensible heat to water, by which the water is evaporated into vapor.
This porcess involves the expansion of volume.
3. Turning of tarbine
= Making use of the volume expansion, electric power generator = turnine turns.
By this process, turbin aquires kinetic energy, which allows the electric power generation.
Other power generation
Geothermal power plant takes heat underground, and other sequential process is basically similar to the thermal power plant.
Wind power makes use of the movement of wind, which moves the turbines to generate electric power.
Solar power relies on "photoelectric effect", which convers the photon energy into electric power.
Nuclear power plant via the nuclear fission obtains the heat to evaporate water, whose expansion turns the turbine.
By multiplying the efficiency of processes involved, the overall power generation efficiency is determined.
