MAKING ELECTRIC POWER: Basic Ideas

To understand how a power plant generates electricity, we have to remember two basic ideas about energy:

• Different forms of energy can be converted from one to another.
• When electric fields and magnetic fields change and interact, electromagnetic energy is produced. Electrical energy is one form of electromagnetic energy.

Almost 200 years ago, scientists and inventors began exploring the relationship between electric fields and magnetic fields. They found that rotating a wire loop within a magnetic field causes a current to flow in the wire. The wire doesn't have to be connected to a battery. Just by rotating the wire, a voltage is created and electrons begin to flow.

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