When you use an electric appiance is all the electricity used up?

Question

And if an item does not use all the electricity that goes through it to run it is there a way to recycle the energy so to speak that is not being used up?

What I mean is where does the electricity go after going into the appliance? Is it all used up, does the unused portion go back out the wires or does it dissipate into the air as light or heat for example?

Answer 1

What is "used up" is the energy transported by the electricity. If the appliance is perfectly efficient, then the energy it uses is all used for its purpose.
If any energy is lost through inefficiency, it is almost all "lost" as heat, sometimes as noise (rarely) or light.

Depending on the appliance and where it is used, it is possible that the lost energy is still being used. For example, a classical light bulb in an enclosed room (not shining to the outside) will use only a small portion of the energy to produce light; the rest is "wasted" as heat -- them babies get hot. However, if it is winter and this heat stays trapped inside the house, it saves on furnace fuel. Even more: the light itself is eventuall stopped by something (walls, furniture) whose atoms will shake in response to the added energy from having received the photon, then they re-emit the energy as heat. All the power (including what was used to make light), eventually serves to heat up the house.
If it is summer, of course, you do not want the heat.

Answer 2

The electricity is not used up at all--in the same sense that your water pipes are not used up when you use water. The thing that is used up when you operate an electrical appliance is energy. The electricity just carries the energy and the wires carry the electricity. The fact that electricity is NEVER created or destroyed is a fundamental law of modern physics. See link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_conservation
Of course the purist will note that energy is conserved as well but in the popular sense energy is used to do useful work.

Answer 3

Appliances run on the push or voltage behind the electric current. There is none left. The push comes in as it is turned on and pushes the electrons as long as it is turned on. Occasionally there is some extra static, which is why some plugs have 3 prongs to take the excess into the ground and prevent shocks and damage to the appliance. The newer plugs that you can only plug in one way, keep the electrons running in one direction only. The current is alternating 60 times a second, going back and forth and back and forth.

Answer 4

Various electrical devices have stamped or labeled on them their electrical capacities and/or ratings. This differs according to what the appliance or device is designed to be used for. There is what is referred to as a "current draw", which means "how much" current is to be utilized at various stages of operation. This is usually measured in amperes and sometimes ampere/hrs. All devices follow a pattern of having a positive and negative circuit. Power is entered in most cases through the positive terminal, and after doing its job within the device its operating, returns through the negative terminal to what is referred.to as a "ground". Generally only a small percentage of residual or periferral energy is lost through the fields that surround the attendant wiring.

Answer 5

Most appliances have some inefficiency. Most of the energy that doesn't go into useful work is changed to heat. It would be very difficult to collect this heat in order to recycle it. However During the cold months this heat helps to heat your house.

Answer 6

This is a very short way to explian a very complicated answer.

No, when electrical is used not all the electricty giving to it is used. The only elctricity used is from resistance. A little electron is often fighting with everything to exist, but it loses very often. The best way to "recycle" electrical energy is to make it more efficient/lower the the force that resist electricity/electrical energy.

Answer 7

Your appliance only use the energy it needs. So it "draws" the energy from the energy grid. Unless it has large capacitors/inductors or rechargable batteries inside, it can not store any energy or return any energy to the grid.

Energy can Not be destroyed or created. it is simply transformed to other form. In the form of appliances, it is usually transformed into heat and/or kinetic energies.

Answer 8

There is not any electricity stored inside the appliance, unless it contains a battery. It gets its' electricity when it is needed. Therefore, you cannot recycle the electricity.

Answer 9

simple answer is yes.

there is no applience that is 100% efficient. not even a light bulb as already explained by someone.

someone forgot to tell you about grounding... excess current, and eddie currents from your applaince go to the grounding system

energy cannot be lost it is only change to another form of energy.

Answer 10

It just changes state to light or heat.