Electricity Generation Fuels

Electricity generation fuels type is differ from one country to another, Let us take United States as an example; there are "four " kinds of power plants fuels that produce most of the electricity in united state:  Coal, Nuclear, Natural Gas and Hydropower as coal plants generate almost half of the electricity in United State and on other hand the renewable energy source " geothermal, wind, and solar power plants ", generate three percent of the produced electricity .In other countries, we will see another types of fuels and another percentage for each fuel. Let us know about the (4) type's power stations that mainly united state depends on:

(1) Fossil Fuel Power Plants:

Fossil fuel power plants burn fuels like natural gas, coal or oil to produce electricity. These energy sources are called fossil fuels because they are formed from the remains and residuals of an ancient sea plants and animals. Most of our electricity is generated from these fossil fuel power plants.

Power plants burn the fossil fuels and use the heat generated to boil the water into a steam, this steam is channeled through a number of pipes at high pressure to move a turbine generator providing the electricity. Fossil fuel power plants have many disadvantages as they produce emissions that pollute the air, contribute to global climate change and also they are considered as less efficiency type of power plants. Sometimes we call fossil fuel power plants as a thermal power plants because they use heat energy to make electricity (note that "Thermeis" is the Greek word for heat).Most fossil power plants in the United States use coal because it is cheap and abundant to extent that almost 92 % of the coal in the United States is sent to power plants to generate electricity.

(2) Nuclear Power Plants:

Nuclear power plants are called also thermal power plants as they generate electricity in the same way as fossil fuel plants referred above, except that they use uranium as a fuel which isn’t burned.

Uranium is a material found in the rocks underground. A nuclear power plant splits uranium atoms into small atoms in a process called "fission"and the result is a huge amount of heat. This heat is used to convert water into steam, which drives a turbine generator and finally electricity is generated.

Nuclear power plants don’t produce carbon emissions, but their waste is radioactive. Nuclear waste must becarefully stored to avoid contamination of people and the environment.

(3) Hydropower Plants:

Hydropower plants use the kinetic energy resulting from the moving of the water to generate electricity as this Fast moving water spin the blades of a turbine generator. Hydropower is considers as a renewable energy source because it is generated from rainfall.

Not only United states but all countries all over the world aims to increase the usage percentage of renewable energy such as wind, solar, ..etc. to avoid the many disadvantages resulting from using the fossil fuels.