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Making Electricity + Waste and Pollution + The Future
To make electricity you have to turn a generator round. There are a variety of ways you can find energy to do that, flowing water or blowing wind can turn a turbine for example. Another way is with a source of heat. Facilities that turn heat into electricity are called thermal power stations.
In every thermal power station a source of heat is used to boil water and make steam. We've all watched steam rushing out of a kettle as it boils. In a power station, as the steam flows out of the boiler, it is used to drive a turbine, and the turbine turns a generator, making electricity.
Power stations can be built on different heat sources. In some countries, volcanic heat from underground can be used. More commonly, coal, oil or gas is burned to boil water and make steam. Burning those fuels produces waste in the form of gases and particles.
A nuclear reaction can be used as the heat source in a power station. The energy released by a kilogram of nuclear fuel is far more than that from a kilogram of a chemical fuel such as coal. Use of nuclear fuel creates no greenhouse gases.
In Canada about 14% of the electricity is generated by nuclear power plants in Ontario New Brunswick and Quebec. In Ontario, almost half of the electricity comes from nuclear power plants.
Pickering nuclear generating station