please describe the advantages of electrical energy over other forms of energy?

Answer 1

Because electricity is bipolar, it has the possibility for being marshalled into states of low entropy (or high order) before being used to do work... which increases the entropy (or reduces the order). Electricity thus has an advantage of being more serviceable than, say, heat, which doesn't have poles to create order with.

Answer 2

Electric energy, as a heat source in the home, is easy and less polluting then having the carbon output of coal, wood, propane or oil burners. But you have to remeber that the electricity was created at a plant that uses great amounts of resources to create that electricity we use. The plants are either water, nuclear, or coal based. Wind turbine fields are newer and use much less energy and resources. Our county just actually finished one above our town. GOOD IDEA!

There are more disadvantages to electrical heat then I can think of advantages. It is expensive and not a very efficient system as much heat is lost through the close vicinity of the walls and site specific heating areas. One other advantage is that it is not a dry heat saving your nose and throat and skin from cracking.

Electrical energy used in automobiles is advantagous due to the lack of burning carbon and therefore the lack of emitting dioxides into our atmosphere. It is also quiter. When you stop an electric car say at a light there is zero noise from the engine. It is very cool but I bit hard to get use to. The disadvantages in some cars are speed (not for the quarter mile), distance (especially the cars you must plug in to recharge), and power (mountains are a challenge to get over). Hybrids that run on battery and gas are prefered for these reasons but there gas mileage has alot to be desired.

Electrical energy is just so widespread and easy in our lives. The large power companies are responsible for producing it (May be easier to control this type of source pollution as it is concentrated and they are more apt at utilizing pollution control measures then a single household) and we just turn on that switch and pay our monthly bill.

I thought this was a great question. It got my mind working this morning, thanks!

Answer 3

I guess the main advantage is low pollution .
Transporting it over long distances with fairly low loss,then distributing it to the end user with small effort is a great advantage.
It must be produced continually but there is a fair capacity on the grid.
Chemical storage is fairly simple,with batteries etc,but this sets the stage for later pollution.
All in all it seems to have an advantage over other forms of energy,so there!

Answer 4

The main adavntage is its "portability" providing easy access in a varied number of ways(batteries, portable generatots, household sockets). Another advantage is the flexible conversion into other forms of energy through many kinds of devices(heaters, light bulbs, electric motors, etc)

Answer 5

well one of its advantages is how easily it can be transformed into other forms of energy. take for example to heat, all you need is a conductor with some resistance as opposed to say getting heat from mechanical energy which would have to involve friction and the heat would probably get away due to conduction with the atmosphere :)

Answer 6

Thermal efficiency runs at about 30% without regeneration..