Types of Power Plants

Energy is an important requirement for us. From running our air conditioners to fueling our vehicles, our daily survival depends upon energy. Energy requirements have led countries to war and continues to be a bone of contention between many nations. Energy comes in various forms. The most convenient of all of them is electrical energy. Not only is it easy to generate, but it can also be generated through a number of different ways with the help of different types of power plants.

Different Types of Power Plants

Nuclear Power Plants
Nuclear power plants work on the chemical process of fission. Fission is a type of nuclear reaction in which, when the atoms of certain elements called nuclear fuels absorb free neutrons, they split into two or more smaller nuclei and some free neutrons. In the process, large amounts of energy is released. The free neutrons further strike the atoms of other fissile materials, thus setting off a chain reaction. The energy released from this chain reaction is harnessed in nuclear power plants to generate electricity.

Nuclear power plants have ways to control or stop these reactions when they seem to go out of control and become threatening. The nuclear fuel used in the nuclear power plants are Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239. Every country is in the race of becoming capable of harnessing nuclear energy. It is so because the free energy released by nuclear material is millions times more than that contained in an equal amount of any other traditional fuel. However, what raises the concern about these reactions is that a lot of radioactive material is created in the process. These substances remain radioactive for long. This raises the problem of managing nuclear waste.

Thermal Power Plants
These power plants generate electrical energy from thermal energy (heat). Since heat is generated by burning fossil fuels like coal, petroleum, or natural gas, these power plants are also collectively referred to as the fossil fueled power plants. Coal power plants were the earliest of the fossil power plants to have been built. The heat generated by burning the fossil fuels is used to turn a rotating machinery, most commonly a steam turbine or a gas turbine that changes the thermal energy into mechanical energy. The rotating turbine is attached to an alternator that coverts the mechanical energy of the rotating turbine into electrical energy.

Hydro Power Plants
These plants use the kinetic energy of flowing water to produce electrical energy. Hydro power plants store water in large reservoirs. Water in these reservoirs flow down the dam and rotate a turbine. As the blades of a turbine turn, so do the magnets inside the generator which is connected to the turbine. These magnets rotate past copper coils and with each rotation, electricity is produced. There are more than 2,000 hydro power plants in the US, making it the largest source of energy in the country. Despite their utility, the major drawback of hydro power plants is that they are highly dependent on the hydrological cycle of the area where they are built.

Solar Power Plants
Solar energy is one of the most abundant natural resources that is capable of providing more power than the current demand requires. Most of the solar power plants are concentrating solar power plants in which the rays of the Sun are concentrated into a single beam using lenses and mirrors. The beam is then used to heat a working fluid that is used to generate power. Besides the concentrating solar power plants, multi-megawatt photovoltaic plants have also been built in recent times. In these plants, Sun rays are concentrated on photovoltaic surfaces which convert the Sun's energy into electrical energy using the photoelectric effect.

Other than these, there are the geothermal energy power plants, wind turbines and renewable power plants that generate electricity for human consumption. Despite the different types of power plants, man is still on the lookout for more ways of generating power. Although fission is the only way of producing energy in nuclear power plants, efforts are on to use nuclear fusion and radioactive decay for energy production.