Generating electricity

[longy1991]

How much do we need to know about all the fdifferent methods for generating electricity?
for example, do we need to know the energy conversions in solar energy and how efficient it is?
I know we need to know about fossil fuels and nuclear power, but are these "fringe" methods required knowledge?

[kimtywong]

I'm not sure. but my teacher always tells me to know the really obvious basic things like..why is nuclear fusion not able to be performed on earth: because extreme high temperature is required which cannot be achieved on earth.

And about different methods of generating electricity.... The papers I did so far just normally touch on it. Some ask qs like "why is coal better than brown coal" [brown coal contains more water, so energy released are used to evaporate water, hence coal's better] or "why is this way of generating electricity better than that..." [normally: less energy transformations] etc. Just application questions generally. Just basic/general knowledge? help? lol

[nala]

From VCAA study design, the only dot point relating to this is:

-> comparison of energy sources: types, uses and sustainability of sources including brown coal,
natural gas, nuclear fission and biochemical fuels;

So I would assume that as long as we have a general idea about the general types and adv/disad, it should be fine. There are so many different types it would be difficult to learn them all anyway!