Ask the Superexpert about Electricity, Natural Gas, & Energy Efficiency
Have you ever wondered why shoes hanging on a power line don’t get fried? Or why natural gas flames are blue? Or whether garbage could someday be a source of energy? Now you can get answers to these and all your energy-related questions. Just Ask the Superexpert!
The Superexpert answers new questions regularly, so check back to see if YOUR question is up!
Since turning on a light is such a simple thing to do, I think you must be asking about the “work” of the electrical transmission and distribution system, which brings electricity from the power plant to the light bulbs in your home or school. This system does indeed involve a lot of work! To learn more about it, check out the Travels of Electricity section of our website.
Technically, windmills do not create electricity, but wind turbines do. Windmills have been in use for about 1,200 years. They use the wind’s energy to do mechanical work, such as milling grain or pumping water. Wind turbines operate differently than windmills. Rather than using the wind’s energy for mechanical work, they use the power of the wind to spin a turbine generator and produce electricity. As the wind blows, it turns the blades of the turbine, which spins a magnet near a coil of copper wire. The spinning magnet causes the electrons in the coil of wire to move. This generates electricity, which is sent through power lines to where it is needed. You can read more about wind energy, and other forms of renewable energy, on this website.
The ancient Chinese were the first to discover underground deposits of natural gas. In 600 BC, Confucius wrote of wells 100 feet deep yielding water and natural gas along the Tibetan border. The Chinese piped the gas to where it was needed through long, hollow bamboo stalks.
Natural gas is called “natural” because when this type of gas was first discovered, it could be used directly from the ground in its natural state, without any processing. Today, gas utilities process natural gas by removing water, sand, and other compounds so that when the gas is delivered to your home it will burn as cleanly and efficiently as possible. And in its natural state gas has no odor, so that’s why companies add a harmless but stinky chemical to it; the odor helps people smell a leak that otherwise, in the gas’s natural state, doesn’t smell.
More homes in the U.S. are heated by natural gas than by electricity.
Organic waste emits methane as it decomposes—or rots—in a landfill. Landfills can collect and treat the methane, and then sell it as a commercial fuel; or they can burn it to generate steam and electricity. Today, there are almost more than 915 gas energy landfill projects operating in the United States.
Yes. In 1626, French explorers found Native Americans igniting gases that were seeping into and around Lake Erie.