Origins of Electrical Power
As you may know, I have a lot of interests (more than I have time to
explore). But one I do spend time on is history; it is so instructive for us and
our future!
So let’s start some history lessons on the origins of electric power and what
types of generation sources we currently use or might be available in the
near future. This will be a series of blogs to explore electric power and – in future blogs – generation sources,
their “fuel,” and their advantages and disadvantages.
Here is a blazing, fast history of electricity focused on the generation of electrical energy. Around 600 B.C.,
Thales of Miletus provided the first writing about electricity (static electricity) when he charged amber by
rubbing. Around 1600, an English scientist William Gilbert coined the word "electricity," deriving it from the
Greek word for amber: "De magnete, magneticisique corporibus." He was also the first to come up with terms
like electric attraction, electric force, and magnetic pole.
In 1660, Otto von Guericke produced a static electricity machine. Alessandro Volta invented the first electric
battery in 1800. (Note that the first U.S. energy utility was started in 1816.) Michael Faraday invented the
electric motor in 1821 and, in 1831, designed the “Faraday disk,” the first electric generator.
In a nod to the suffering all electrical engineers would undergo in their schooling, James Maxwell wrote his
famous equations in 1873 that mathematically defined electromagnetic fields. Charles Brush’s generators were
used in San Francisco for the first commercial power station in 1879. In 1884, Charles Parsons described the first
steam turbine arrangement. The first hydro station, High Grove in California, was opened in 1887.
Nikola Tesla came up with the monumental invention of a rotating field alternate current (AC) alternator in
1888. This led to the ability to efficiently convert all kinds of mechanical energy to AC electrical energy.
Since then, most developments in the industry have been the applications of those energies to an AC generator.
Pulverized coal was first used in 1920, the same year the Federal Power Commission (predecessor to the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission) was established. The first power plant using nuclear technology was ordered in
1953. Wind farms were introduced in 1980. The first tidal-pool power plant was commissioned in 1984 in Nova
Scotia.
Today, most electricity is generated using a “dynamo” to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy
(current). We will discuss other direct conversions in the future, but they are currently not major sources of
electrical energy. We will also explore the sources of mechanical energy and direct conversion. I hope this will be
done in roughly chronological order, but we will see.