‘Energy’ Archives
Binding Energy
Binding Energy Binding energy is the energy that is released when an atomic nucleus is formed; it is also called the mass defect because it is the difference in energy terms between the mass of the nucleus and the sum of the masses of its protons and neutrons. A star’s energy is the binding energy that is released as hydrogen is built up to [...]
Inanimate Energy
Inanimate Energy If preindustrial societies relied on animate sources of energy (i.e., human and animal muscle power), industrialization can be defined loosely as the harnessing of inanimate sources of energy. The first of this type was running water in waterwheels, a source used since the late Middle Ages to grind corn and flour and to saw [...]
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent U.S. government agency responsible for licensing and regulating civilian use of nuclear energy. Created by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC opened on January 9, 1975. The NRC took over the role of oversight of nuclear energy matters from the [...]
Electricity Generation and the Environment
Electricity Generation and the Environment Fossil fuel thermal generating technologies were a mainstay of both twentieth century electricity generation and environmental attention. While concern with declining urban air quality, initially at the center of this attention, dated back to the nineteenth century, it was the substantial post- World [...]
Fuel Cells
Fuel Cells The principle of the fuel cell (FC) is similar to that of the electrical storage battery. However, whereas the battery has a fixed stock of chemical reactants and can ‘‘run down,’’ the fuel cell is continuously supplied (from a separate tank) with a stream of oxidizer and fuel from which it generates electricity. [...]
Electricity Today
Electricity Today Modern life depends on electricity. Virtually every home in Britain is connected to the public electricity supply, though that has been achieved only since the Second World War. In 1920 the supply industry had under a million customers in England and Wales. The figure reached 10 million by 1945 and 15 million by 1960. Now [...]
Modern Electric Motors
Modern Electric Motors By the mid-twentieth century it seemed reasonable to say that electric motor development was complete, but in 1957 Professor G.H.Rawcliffe developed the pole amplitude modulated, or PAM, motor. This is a synchronous or induction motor whose field coils are so arranged that by interchanging a few connections the number of [...]
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday Michael Faraday, who has been called ‘the father of electricity’, was born in the Surrey village of Newington, now part of Greater London, the third child of a blacksmith who had recently moved from Westmorland. His formal education was minimal—in his own words ‘little more than the rudiments of reading, writing and [...]
Petroleum
Petroleum Gaseous and liquid seepages of petroleum were known in the ancient world, the greatest concentrations being in Mesopotamia. The Babylonians gave to an inflammable oil, of which no use was made, the name ‘naphtha’, or ‘the thing that blazes’. A use was found for rock asphalt and the thicker seepages, to form bitumen, [...]
Coal Gas
Coal Gas By the end of the eighteenth century, the importance of the liquid and gaseous products of coal was beginning to be appreciated. Several investigators had made experiments with producing an inflammable gas by heating coal, but it was William Murdock (born Murdoch) who made the first successful largescale attempt. In 1792 he succeeded [...]
