How does a power station using non-renewable energy sources generate electricity?
You take a fuel with carbon in it. (Can be wood, coal, natural gas, oil or any number of other carbon based fuels.) Add heat and oxygen to initiate a chemical reaction called combustion. The chemical reaction will create a large amount of additional heat which is used to turn water into steam. The steam then turns a large magnetized rotor inside of a generator. The rotation of the rotor creates an electric current in the generator’s stator which is transferred to the power grid. If you control the chemical reaction by making sure that just the right amount of fuel and oxygen is mixed, you will have complete combustion and the other two byproducts (in addition to the heat) will be water vapor and carbon dioxide. Any other atmospheric releases are due to impurities in the original fuel source (contaminates). Until recently when the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, carbon dioxide was considered completely safe since it is the “food” that plants need to live and produce oxygen (which starts
