Today we can no longer imagine our life without electricity. Almost all devices are powered by electricity, and even those that produce it.
There are several types of power plants - thermal power plants, hydroelectric power stations, nuclear power plants, BES, TPP, etc., and sources from which we learned how to obtain the energy we need. At the beginning of the development of energy, the main raw material for production was coal. Now, a century later, we have learned how to produce electricity using other resources.
World electricity production
The United States is the leading electricity producer in the world. In second place is China. Then the European Union, Russia, Japan. Nowadays, the production of electricity by thermal power plants mainly occurs with the use of oil, or rather, its fraction, referred to as fuel oil. But its use is gradually declining. Since we live in an environmentally challenging time for the whole world, a cleaner production of electricity is replacing it.
One of the first was mastered wind energy. On earth, winds constantly blow everywhere. So, the conditions for the development of wind energy are more than favorable. This is an environmentally friendly and easily accessible production.
Another alternative is to generate electricity using the sun. Interest in this issue has grown significantly recently and continues to grow. Many minds are working to make electricity using solar panels more profitable. Of course, in different countries electricity production is developed in different ways. And if solar stations for processing solar energy in Russia are suitable only for some southern regions, then, for example, South America can use this production to its full potential. The same applies to the use of wind energy. In some countries, at the initial stage of development, there are geothermal stations that use energy released from the earth in volcanic zones. In service, such power plants are quite economical, but the construction of such facilities is expensive.
Power transmission
One of the most important tasks of the energy sector is the production and transmission of electricity to the consumer. And consumers are everywhere. Since electricity is generated only in certain places, there is a need to transmit it over long distances. For the transmission of electricity mainly used power lines - overhead power lines. It is known that when transmitting electricity over long distances, its noticeable losses occur. With a significant distance to the consumer, transmission can become generally unprofitable. In order to maintain the transmitted power, it is necessary to increase the voltage in the power line. Moreover, the greater the distance, the higher the voltage should be. It is for this that voltage-increasing transformers are installed at power plants.
There is also a “closed” power transmission. It is a closed structure filled with electrically insulating gas. Inside are wires under high voltage.
But even such a transmission of electricity is not always beneficial. In some cases, namely at very large distances, it is more expedient to transport fuel for production by rail: coal - in large cars, and fuel oil - in tanks.
If we talk about the future, since oil is quite unstable in relation to prices, and stocks are becoming much smaller, we will soon return to the predominant use of coal for electricity production.