NRG Smarts | Free Energy Information for Consumers and Students

Water has been used as a source of energy for millennia. All of the civilisations of antiquity used water extensively, employing water wheels and other devices to raise water to higher levels for irrigation.
Hydroelectric generation originated with the invention of the hydro turbine in France in the 1830s. The transmission of hydroelectric power was demonstrated at the Exposition in Munich of 1882. 2,400 volts of power was transmitted by direct current over...

Nuclear energy is used for a variety of purposes. The most important are power generation, as a military weapon, ship propulsion, space travel, medical treatments, and the production of hydrogen for fuel cells.
Nuclear science was developed during the first half of the twentieth century and this stage culminated with the nuclear bomb in 1945. Other uses then followed, mainly ship propulsion, electricity generation and to a lesser extent medical use....

The half century from 1880 to 1930 constituted the formative years of the history of electric power systems. The three components of the total system (generation, transmission and distribution) evolved in three separate stages. The first stage, in the...

The domestic market in the US is about 17 times the size of the export market. US production is largely directed to the domestic electricity market. Over 40% of US electricity generation is derived from coal, and the majority of coal production is sold...