What is the difference between energy sources for generating electricity?

Question

What is the difference between energy sources for generating electricity?

Answer 1

Well first there are three primary ways:

1.  Mechanical - Generators

2.  Chemical - Batteries, Fuel Cells

3.  Photovoltaic - Using Light

Mechanical generators convert spinning motion to electrical power.  The spinning can be produced in any number of ways:

Nuclear Steam Plants

Coal Steam plants

Geothermal steam plants

Turbines (Gas or fuel oil)

Hydro

Wind

Each of those has advantages and disadvantages

Nuclear - Advantages:  Clean.  Disadvantages:  Spent fuel dangerous and must be stored forever, expensive to build,  Reactors can make fuel for bombs

Coal:  Advantages:  Coal is the cheapest, most plentiful fuel.  Disadvantages - Environmentally damaging to both extract the coal and burn it.

Geothermal steam plants:  Advantages:  Clean, Cheap.  Disadvantages:  It's only an option is a few places on earth where there are active thermal vents - like Iceland

Gas/Fuel Turbines:  Advantages:  Cheapest and fastest to build.  Disadvantages:  Most expensive fuel and getting more expensive every day.  Burning contributes to greenhouse gas.

Hydro:  Advantages:  Very clean, renewable, very cheap in the long run:  Disadvantages:  requires large dams with significant environmental cost.  Very expensive to develop.

Wind:  Advantages:  Clean, Renewable, Cheap to build.  Disadvantages:  Wind power not consistent, large areas of land are needed, Unsightly.

There are also other exotic methods that right now don't have viable commercial applicaitons:  Solar Thermal, Wave/Tidal, airborne wind turbine among them