Elec­tric­i­ty facts

The army. By 1990 there were more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly military) than there were generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide (however, marine reactors are much smaller). Many of these submarines and other vessels were decommissioned in the 1990s.

Explosion. Any lead-acid battery system when overcharged will produce hydrogen gas by electrolysis of water. If the rate of overcharge is small, the vents of each cell allow the dissipation of the gas. A severe overcharge may produce a flammable concentration of hydrogen.

Three Gorges Dam, China. The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW).

Solar power plant. In The PS10 Solar Power Plant, 624 movable mirrors concentrate the sun's rays to the top of a 115 meter (377 ft) high, the tower where a steam turbine is located. The plant is located near Seville, Spain.

In South America. Electric eels inhabit muddy waters of the Amazon and Orinoco basins floodplains and swamps. Fortunately, these are remote and uninhabited areas, as electric eels can easily kill a human. Although it doesn't eat such large animals (it has no teeth and can swallow only small mammals), a series of electric shocks is enough to stun and drown a horse.

Brazil and Paraguay. The Itaipu Dam is located on the Paraná River between Brazil and Paraguay. It is still the largest dam in terms of annual energy generation, even though its capacity is smaller than Three Gorges Dam. Of the twenty generator units, ten generate at 50 Hz for Paraguay and ten generate at 60 Hz for Brazil.

1S (siemens). Conductance (conductivity) is the reverse of the resistance. So it is a measure of the susceptibility of the element to the flow of the electric current. Siemens is the unit of electric conductance named after German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens, founder of the well known Siemens company.

Electrical charges. Leyden jar is a device that stores static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It was the first known form of a capacitor (condenser). The glass plays the role of a dielectric material.

Kirchhoff's circuit laws. Kirchhoff's current law is also called Kirchhoff's first law, Kirchhoff's point rule, or Kirchhoff's junction rule (or nodal rule). The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that: At any node (junction) in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing into that node is equal to the sum of currents flowing out of that node or equivalently The algebraic sum of currents in a network of conductors meeting at a point is zero.