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87-431: The expansion of electrical power generation was long regarded as one of the highest priorities by the ruling Communist Party , embodied by Lenin 's November 1920 epigram that "Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country" — an injunction programmatically advanced by the 1920 GOELRO plan . With Soviet electrical engineers and advanced generation equipment in chronically short supply in this period,

174-484: A gigawatt each. They generate about a third of the world's electricity , but cause many illnesses and the most early deaths per unit of energy produced, mainly from air pollution . World installed capacity doubled from 2000 to 2023 and increased 2% in 2023. A coal-fired power station is a type of fossil fuel power station . The coal is usually pulverized and then burned in a pulverized coal-fired boiler . The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam , which

261-533: A magnet . Central power stations became economically practical with the development of alternating current (AC) power transmission, using power transformers to transmit power at high voltage and with low loss. Commercial electricity production started with the coupling of the dynamo to the hydraulic turbine. The mechanical production of electric power began the Second Industrial Revolution and made possible several inventions using electricity, with

348-492: A cerebral haemorrhage. The trauma ended his ten-year marriage, and he left Yaroslavl to join his unmarried sisters, Vera and Ludmila, who shared an apartment that was a popular meeting place for revolutionaries. Menzhinsky had joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1902. During the 1905 revolution , Vera Menzhinsky worked alongside Nadezhda Krupskaya , Vladimir Lenin 's wife, who

435-562: A feeling of burning enmity towards the new forms of economy, life, and culture. "These gentlemen are no longer able to launch a frontal attack against the Soviet regime. They and their classes made such attacks several times, but they were routed and dispersed. Hence, the only thing left them is to do mischief and harm to the workers, to the collective farmers, to the Soviet regime, and to the Party. And they are doing as much mischief as they can, acting on

522-451: A generator are photovoltaic solar and fuel cells . Almost all commercial electrical power on Earth is generated with a turbine , driven by wind, water, steam or burning gas. The turbine drives a generator, thus transforming its mechanical energy into electrical energy by electromagnetic induction. There are many different methods of developing mechanical energy, including heat engines , hydro, wind and tidal power. Most electric generation

609-645: A generator to rotate. Electrochemistry is the direct transformation of chemical energy into electricity, as in a battery . Electrochemical electricity generation is important in portable and mobile applications. Currently, most electrochemical power comes from batteries. Primary cells , such as the common zinc–carbon batteries , act as power sources directly, but secondary cells (i.e. rechargeable batteries) are used for storage systems rather than primary generation systems. Open electrochemical systems, known as fuel cells , can be used to extract power either from natural fuels or from synthesized fuels. Osmotic power

696-408: A huge amount of power from a single unit. However, nuclear disasters have raised concerns over the safety of nuclear power, and the capital cost of nuclear plants is very high. Hydroelectric power plants are located in areas where the potential energy from falling water can be harnessed for moving turbines and the generation of power. It may not be an economically viable single source of production where

783-542: A large number of consumers. Most power plants used in centralised generation are thermal power plants meaning that they use a fuel to heat steam to produce a pressurised gas which in turn spins a turbine and generates electricity. This is the traditional way of producing energy. This process relies on several forms of technology to produce widespread electricity, these being natural coal, gas and nuclear forms of thermal generation. More recently solar and wind have become large scale. A photovoltaic power station , also known as

870-561: A notice on it saying 'Commissariat of Finance', and lay down on it. Lenin came in and found him asleep. When officials at the Russian State Bank refused to recognise the new regime, Menzhinsky had the director and others arrested. According to G. von Schantz, Menzhinsky "personally conducted the wrecking of the Russian banks, a maneuver that deprived all opponents of Bolshevism of their financial means of warfare." In April 1918, Menzhinsky

957-541: A panel of 6 "expert engineers" had studied the matter in association with the office of the Prosecutor General of the RSFSR Andrey Vyshinsky and had concluded that in all the cases of breakdowns investigated there was either criminal negligence or deliberate wrecking on the part of a number of persons in the technical personnel serving these stations." As for the charges of espionage, the prosecution cited

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1044-422: A poor sketch for an unfinished portrait. Only now and then would an ingratiating smile or secret play of the eyes betray his eagerness from insignificance ... No-one took any notice of Menzhinsky, so quietly toiling away over his papers." He was master of more than 10 languages (including Korean , Chinese , Turkish , and Persian , the last one learned especially in order to read works by Omar Khayyám ). After

1131-536: A prime source of power within isolated villages. Total world generation in 2021 was 28,003 TWh, including coal (36%), gas (23%), hydro (15%), nuclear (10%), wind (6.6%), solar (3.7%), oil and other fossil fuels (3.1%), biomass (2.4%) and geothermal and other renewables (0.33%). China produced a third of the world's electricity in 2021, largely from coal. The United States produces half as much as China but uses far more natural gas and nuclear. Variations between countries generating electrical power affect concerns about

1218-441: A scale of at least 1 MW p . As of 2018, the world's largest operating photovoltaic power stations surpassed 1 gigawatt . At the end of 2019, about 9,000 solar farms were larger than 4 MW AC (utility scale), with a combined capacity of over 220 GW AC . A wind farm or wind park, or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity . Wind farms vary in size from

1305-533: A small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an extensive area. Wind farms can be either onshore or offshore . Many of the largest operational onshore wind farms are located in China, India, and the United States. For example, the largest wind farm in the world , Gansu Wind Farm in China had a capacity of over 6,000  MW by 2012, with a goal of 20,000 MW by 2020. As of December 2020,

1392-465: A solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power . They are different from most building-mounted and other decentralized solar power because they supply power at the utility level, rather than to a local user or users. Utility-scale solar is sometimes used to describe this type of project. This approach differs from concentrated solar power ,

1479-462: Is a possibility at places where salt and fresh water merge. The photovoltaic effect is the transformation of light into electrical energy, as in solar cells . Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly to DC electricity. Power inverters can then convert that to AC electricity if needed. Although sunlight is free and abundant, solar power electricity is still usually more expensive to produce than large-scale mechanically generated power due to

1566-468: Is based upon the local power requirement and the fluctuations in demand. All power grids have varying loads on them. The daily minimum is the base load , often supplied by plants which run continuously. Nuclear, coal, oil, gas and some hydro plants can supply base load. If well construction costs for natural gas are below $ 10 per MWh, generating electricity from natural gas is cheaper than generating power by burning coal. Nuclear power plants can produce

1653-975: Is driven by heat engines. The combustion of fossil fuels supplies most of the energy to these engines, with a significant fraction from nuclear fission and some from renewable sources . The modern steam turbine , invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884, currently generates about 80% of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources. Turbine types include: Turbines can also use other heat-transfer liquids than steam. Supercritical carbon dioxide based cycles can provide higher conversion efficiency due to faster heat exchange, higher energy density and simpler power cycle infrastructure. Supercritical carbon dioxide blends , that are currently in development, can further increase efficiency by optimizing its critical pressure and temperature points. Although turbines are most common in commercial power generation, smaller generators can be powered by gasoline or diesel engines . These may used for backup generation or as

1740-511: Is fundamentally the opposite of distributed generation . Distributed generation is the small-scale generation of electricity to smaller groups of consumers. This can also include independently producing electricity by either solar or wind power. In recent years distributed generation as has seen a spark in popularity due to its propensity to use renewable energy generation methods such as rooftop solar . Centralised energy sources are large power plants that produce huge amounts of electricity to

1827-536: Is most often generated at a power plant by electromechanical generators , primarily driven by heat engines fueled by combustion or nuclear fission , but also by other means such as the kinetic energy of flowing water and wind. Other energy sources include solar photovoltaics and geothermal power . There are exotic and speculative methods to recover energy, such as proposed fusion reactor designs which aim to directly extract energy from intense magnetic fields generated by fast-moving charged particles generated by

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1914-577: Is provided by batteries. Other forms of electricity generation used in niche applications include the triboelectric effect , the piezoelectric effect , the thermoelectric effect , and betavoltaics . Electric generators transform kinetic energy into electricity. This is the most used form for generating electricity based on Faraday's law . It can be seen experimentally by rotating a magnet within closed loops of conducting material, e.g. copper wire. Almost all commercial electrical generation uses electromagnetic induction, in which mechanical energy forces

2001-468: Is rated in megawatt-peak (MW p ), which refers to the solar array's theoretical maximum DC power output. In other countries, the manufacturer states the surface and the efficiency. However, Canada, Japan, Spain, and the United States often specify using the converted lower nominal power output in MW AC , a measure more directly comparable to other forms of power generation. Most solar parks are developed at

2088-429: Is then used to spin turbines that turn generators . Thus chemical energy stored in coal is converted successively into thermal energy , mechanical energy and, finally, electrical energy . Natural gas is ignited to create pressurised gas which is used to spin turbines to generate electricity. Natural gas plants use a gas turbine where natural gas is added along with oxygen which in turn combusts and expands through

2175-621: The Cheka in 1919, and in 1923 was promoted to its deputy under Felix Dzerzhinsky . After his death in 1926, Menzhinsky became head of the Cheka's successor, the OGPU. He worked to crush resistance in the countryside during Joseph Stalin 's forced agricultural collectivization . Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, a member of the Polish nobility , was born into an Orthodox Christian Polish-Russian family of teachers. His father

2262-521: The Duma . Menzhinsky joined the "boycottists", led by Lenin's rival, Alexander Bogdanov , and joined the editorial board of their journal Vpered , but when the Vpered faction split, Menzhinsky aligned himself with the self-proclaimed "Orthodox Marxists", Grigory Aleksinsky and Mikhail Pokrovsky , rejecting the concept of proletarian culture developed by Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky . Writing in

2349-682: The February Revolution of 1917, Menzhinsky returned to Russia in the summer of that year and joined the Mezhraiontsy , an independent faction whose leading figure was Leon Trotsky who merged with the Bolsheviks in August 1917. A few days after the Bolshevik Revolution , he was appointed People's Commissar for Finance. His first act in this post was to drag a large sofa into his office, tacked

2436-607: The Soviet Union turned at once to the hiring of foreign specialists and the importation of machinery produced abroad in an effort to expeditiously overcome the deficit during the years of the first Five Year Plan , launched in 1928. One of the foreign firms contracting with the Soviet government for the installation of electrical equipment and its supervision in production was the British firm Metropolitan-Vickers (Metrovick). The firm had actively pursued engineering contracts outside of

2523-650: The Three Mile Island accident , Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima nuclear disaster illustrate this problem. The table lists 45 countries with their total electricity capacities. The data is from 2022. According to the Energy Information Administration , the total global electricity capacity in 2022 was nearly 8.9 terawatt (TW), more than four times the total global electricity capacity in 1981. The global average per-capita electricity capacity

2610-412: The electric power industry , it is the stage prior to its delivery ( transmission , distribution , etc.) to end users or its storage , using for example, the pumped-storage method. Consumable electricity is not freely available in nature, so it must be "produced", transforming other forms of energy to electricity. Production is carried out in power stations , also called "power plants". Electricity

2697-429: The steam turbine had a massive impact on the efficiency of electrical generation but also the economics of generation as well. This conversion of heat energy into mechanical work was similar to that of steam engines , however at a significantly larger scale and far more productively. The improvements of these large-scale generation plants were critical to the process of centralised generation as they would become vital to

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2784-496: The 1218 MW Hornsea Wind Farm in the UK is the largest offshore wind farm in the world . Individual wind turbine designs continue to increase in power , resulting in fewer turbines being needed for the same total output. A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity . Worldwide there are about 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating

2871-475: The 1880s the popularity of electricity grew massively with the introduction of the Incandescent light bulb . Although there are 22 recognised inventors of the light bulb prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison , Edison and Swan's invention became by far the most successful and popular of all. During the early years of the 19th century, massive jumps in electrical sciences were made. And by the later 19th century

2958-520: The British. Allan Monkhouse, Charles Nordwall and John Cushny were given expulsion. A. W. Gregory was acquitted. Of the Russians, M. Zorin received an eight-year sentence and Anna Kutusova 18 months. In the view of the most recent study of the affair, by Nipissing University history professor Gordon W. Morrell, the comparatively mild sentences may have resulted from indecision within the Soviet government as to

3045-572: The Northern America in the 1920s in large cities and urban areas. It was not until the 1930s that rural areas saw the large-scale establishment of electrification. 2021 world electricity generation by source. Total generation was 28 petawatt-hours . Several fundamental methods exist to convert other forms of energy into electrical energy. Utility-scale generation is achieved by rotating electric generators or by photovoltaic systems. A small proportion of electric power distributed by utilities

3132-466: The OGPU into a series of sudden and regularly recurring breakdowns which have lately occurred in big power stations (Moscow, Cheliabinsk, Zuevka, Zlatoust) has revealed that the breakdowns were the result of wrecking activity on the part of a group of criminal elements among state employees under the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry , who made it their object to destroy the power stations of

3219-495: The OGPU" and assist in the effort to "frame up" a case against her employer and his associates. With the Soviet secret police clearly investigating the firm, Monkhouse left Moscow for England on 6 February 1933, for a three-week stay. The Soviet Union's trade representative in London, who had himself just arrived from Moscow, gave Monkhouse a firm assurance on 10 February that the OGPU investigation of Metro-Vickers had been discussed with

3306-546: The OGPU’s chiefs and that these high officials knew nothing of any action planned against the British firm. Monkhouse consequently returned to Moscow as planned. At 9:15 pm on 11 March 1933, Metro-Vickers officials L.C. Thornton and Monkhouse were conversing with two guests representing a large engineering firm following a dinner together. Suddenly eight OGPU officers burst into the room, instructing those present to remain seated. Some five hours of close investigation followed, headed by

3393-532: The Russian emigre journal, Our Echo in July 1910, Menzhinsky wrote: Lenin is a political Jesuit who over the course of many years has moulded Marxism to the aims of the moment ... Lenin, this illegitimate child of Russian absolutism, considers himself not only the natural successor to the Russian throne, when it becomes vacant, but also the sole heir of the Socialist International. Should he ever come to power,

3480-767: The UK through its subsidiary, the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Export Company, established in 1919. Other electrical companies supplying power generating equipment to the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s included the German company Siemens and the American corporation General Electric . On 7 January 1933, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin made a speech on the first Five-Year Plan, but concluded with an ominous warning against counter-revolutionary elements which he claimed were still working to bring about

3567-619: The USSR (acts of diversion) and put out of commission the State factories served by these power stations. In the work of this wrecking group there actively participated certain employees of the British firm, Metropolitan-Vickers..." The decision to proceed to a formal public trial relating to the British employees of Metro-Vickers was made by the Central Executive Committee on 30 March 1933. The week-long trial commenced on 12 April. According to

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3654-583: The United States, fossil fuel combustion for electric power generation is responsible for 65% of all emissions of sulfur dioxide , the main component of acid rain. Electricity generation is the fourth highest combined source of NO x , carbon monoxide , and particulate matter in the US. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), low-carbon electricity generation needs to account for 85% of global electrical output by 2040 in order to ward off

3741-508: The ability to store the flow of water is limited and the load varies too much during the annual production cycle. Electric generators were known in simple forms from the discovery of electromagnetic induction in the 1830s. In general, some form of prime mover such as an engine or the turbines described above, drives a rotating magnetic field past stationary coils of wire thereby turning mechanical energy into electricity. The only commercial scale forms of electricity production that do not employ

3828-411: The advancement of electrical technology and engineering led to electricity being part of everyday life. With the introduction of many electrical inventions and their implementation into everyday life, the demand for electricity within homes grew dramatically. With this increase in demand, the potential for profit was seen by many entrepreneurs who began investing into electrical systems to eventually create

3915-487: The atmosphere. Nuclear power plants can also create district heating and desalination projects, limiting carbon emissions and the need for expanded electrical output. A fundamental issue regarding centralised generation and the current electrical generation methods in use today is the significant negative environmental effects that many of the generation processes have. Processes such as coal and gas not only release carbon dioxide as they combust, but their extraction from

4002-523: The chief parties in the Metro-Vickers affair was himself clear about a connection between such an official call to vigilance and the events which would follow, declaring in a 1934 memoir that "the OGPU were not slow in discovering and revealing the existence of numerous plots" in response to Stalin's "call for action," thereby "proving the words of the 'Dictator.'" On 25 January 1933, the OGPU "literally dragged"

4089-616: The cost of the panels. Low-efficiency silicon solar cells have been decreasing in cost and multijunction cells with close to 30% conversion efficiency are now commercially available. Over 40% efficiency has been demonstrated in experimental systems. Until recently, photovoltaics were most commonly used in remote sites where there is no access to a commercial power grid, or as a supplemental electricity source for individual homes and businesses. Recent advances in manufacturing efficiency and photovoltaic technology, combined with subsidies driven by environmental concerns, have dramatically accelerated

4176-462: The course of which leaders of large anti-Soviet centers abroad, Boris Savinkov and Sidney Reilly , were lured to the Soviet Union and arrested. Meanwhile, the Chekist , Menzhinsky was loyal to Joseph Stalin , whose personality cult had already begun to form, coinciding with several important purges in 1930 to 1931. Menzhinsky spent his last years as an invalid, suffering from acute angina since

4263-567: The deployment of solar panels. Installed capacity is growing by around 20% per year led by increases in Germany, Japan, United States, China, and India. The selection of electricity production modes and their economic viability varies in accordance with demand and region. The economics vary considerably around the world, resulting in widespread residential selling prices. Hydroelectric plants , nuclear power plants , thermal power plants and renewable sources have their own pros and cons, and selection

4350-464: The deputy chief of the Economic Department of the OGPU, who presented Monkhouse with search and arrest warrants. Monkhouse later estimated that between 50 and 80 select OGPU officials were involved in the carefully planned raid. Those arrested were Allan Monkhouse, his assistant Leslie C Thornton, John Cushney and William MacDonald. Four Russian employees were also taken into custody. Monkhouse

4437-414: The downfall of the Soviet state: "Thrown out of their groove, and scattered over the whole face of the USSR, these 'has-beens' have wormed their way into our plants and factories, into our government offices and trading organizations, into our railway and transport enterprises... What did they carry with them into these places? Of course, they carried with them a feeling of hatred towards the Soviet regime,

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4524-533: The electricity through high voltage transmission lines to a substation, where it is then distributed to consumers; the basic concept being that multi-megawatt or gigawatt scale large stations create electricity for a large number of people. The vast majority of electricity used is created from centralised generation. Most centralised power generation comes from large power plants run by fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, though nuclear or large hydroelectricity plants are also commonly used. Centralised generation

4611-517: The entire power system that we now use today. Throughout the middle of the 20th century many utilities began merging their distribution networks due to economic and efficiency benefits. Along with the invention of long-distance power transmission , the coordination of power plants began to form. This system was then secured by regional system operators to ensure stability and reliability. The electrification of homes began in Northern Europe and in

4698-404: The environment. In France only 10% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels , the US is higher at 70% and China is at 80%. The cleanliness of electricity depends on its source. Methane leaks (from natural gas to fuel gas-fired power plants) and carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-based electricity generation account for a significant portion of world greenhouse gas emissions . In

4785-525: The established rules of procedure..." No death sentences were handed out as a result of the April 1933 Metro-Vickers trial, with two of those indicted to stand trial not receiving punishment of any kind. Leslie Thornton received a three-year sentence and William MacDonald two years, to be served at the Sokolniki prison - though the prisoners were freed and deported two months later, following trade sanctions imposed by

4872-401: The exhausted nervous and mental condition to which I had been reduced after a very long day’s examination by the OGPU, following a sleepless night." Monkhouse expressed a belief that the basic method of operation of the OGPU was to "trick" those being detained into signing written statements which could later be used against them at trial. After a second lengthy day of interrogation the interview

4959-428: The first electricity public utilities. This process in history is often described as electrification. The earliest distribution of electricity came from companies operating independently of one another. A consumer would purchase electricity from a producer, and the producer would distribute it through their own power grid. As technology improved so did the productivity and efficiency of its generation. Inventions such as

5046-515: The formal indictment read at the start of the trial, the defendants were part of a "wrecking group" which sought to damage state equipment "with the object of undermining the power of Soviet industry and weakening the Soviet state," as well as participating in the gathering of intelligence about the defense capabilities of the USSR. It was asserted that bribery and corruption of "certain employees of state power stations" had been carried out in connection with this secret mission. The indictment noted that

5133-495: The fusion reaction (see magnetohydrodynamics ). Phasing out coal-fired power stations and eventually gas-fired power stations , or, if practical, capturing their greenhouse gas emissions , is an important part of the energy transformation required to limit climate change . Vastly more solar power and wind power is forecast to be required, with electricity demand increasing strongly with further electrification of transport , homes and industry. However, in 2023, it

5220-420: The generators. Although there are several types of nuclear reactors, all fundamentally use this process. Normal emissions due to nuclear power plants are primarily waste heat and radioactive spent fuel. In a reactor accident, significant amounts of radioisotopes can be released to the environment, posing a long term hazard to life. This hazard has been a continuing concern of environmentalists. Accidents such as

5307-494: The ground also impacts the environment. Open pit coal mines use large areas of land to extract coal and limit the potential for productive land use after the excavation. Natural gas extraction releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere when extracted from the ground greatly increase global greenhouse gases. Although nuclear power plants do not release carbon dioxide through electricity generation, there are risks associated with nuclear waste and safety concerns associated with

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5394-458: The heat input is from the process of nuclear fission . Currently, nuclear power produces 11% of all electricity in the world. Most nuclear reactors use uranium as a source of fuel. In a process called nuclear fission , energy, in the form of heat, is released when nuclear atoms are split. Electricity is created through the use of a nuclear reactor where heat produced by nuclear fission is used to produce steam which in turn spins turbines and powers

5481-611: The indictment, additionally indicated that the instruction to collect such material on "the political and economic situation of the USSR" had come in the summer of 1929 from his boss, L.C. Thornton. In his damning pre-trial interrogation transcript, MacDonald also admitted attempting to sabotage military production at an attached metallurgical works by undermining electrical production at the Zlatoust power station and to have paid Gussev 2,000 or 2,500 rubles for his assistance. Soviet authorities were anxious to counter anticipated objections that

5568-518: The late 1920s, which rendered him incapable of physical exertion. He conducted the affairs of the OGPU while lying upon a couch in his office at the Lubyanka , but rarely interfered in the day-to-day operation of the GPU. Stalin tended to deal with his first deputy Genrikh Yagoda , who essentially took over as head of the organization in all but name beginning in the late 1920s. Menzhinsky died on 10 May 1934, at

5655-469: The major contributors being Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla . Previously the only way to produce electricity was by chemical reactions or using battery cells, and the only practical use of electricity was for the telegraph . Electricity generation at central power stations started in 1882, when a steam engine driving a dynamo at Pearl Street Station produced a DC current that powered public lighting on Pearl Street , New York . The new technology

5742-407: The mischief he would do would not be much less than that of Paul I . The Leninist are not even a faction, but a clan of party gypsies who hope to drown the voice of the proletariat with their screams. Trotsky who knew Menzhinsky from when they were exiles, in 1920, left a scathing portrait of him: "The impression he made on me could best be described by saying that he made none at all. He seemed like

5829-425: The other major large-scale solar generation technology, which uses heat to drive a variety of conventional generator systems. Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, but to date, for a variety of reasons, photovoltaic technology has seen much wider use. As of 2019 , about 97% of utility-scale solar power capacity was PV. In some countries, the nameplate capacity of photovoltaic power stations

5916-497: The pre-trial interrogation transcripts of V.A. Gussev, head of the Zlatoust Power Station from 1929, who admitted collecting military-related information as well as that of W.L. MacDonald, who in his own statement acknowledged telling Gussev that he "required information about the production of military supplies at the Zlatoust works, the state of power supply, etc." MacDonald's interrogation transcript, introduced as part of

6003-479: The pre-trial statements by Gussev and MacDonald had been obtained under duress, with procurator Andrey Vyshinsky publishing an interview on the politically sensitive prospective case in Izvestiia on March 23 asserting that "no kind of pressure was brought to bear on the accused" and that "only enemies who are striving to impair our relations with other states would spread such absurd rumors about alleged deviations from

6090-499: The secretary of six years for Metro-Vickers' Moscow chief, Allan Monkhouse, into a waiting motor car and drove her off to OGPU headquarters at Lubianka Square . Secretary Anna Kutusova returned, "exhausted and terrified," to Monkhouse's office at 10 am the next day, her fingers stained with ink from writing. "What had occurred, she would not and probably dared not say," Monkhouse later recalled, adding that he felt sure that threats had been used to cause her to henceforth "act as an agent of

6177-552: The severity of the alleged wrecking activity and the efficacy of draconian punishment in a case so closely impacting Soviet-British relations. Contemporary historians of the Soviet Union regard the Metro-Vickers Affair as one of a series of show trials conducted by the All-Union Communist Party against engineers and technicians trained under the old regime — proceedings which included the 1928 Shakhty Trial and

6264-402: The sly. They set fire to warehouses and wreck machinery. They organize sabotage. "As a result of fulfilling the five year plan we have succeeded in finally ejecting the last remnants of the hostile classes from their positions in production... But that is not enough. The task is to eject these 'has-beens' from our own enterprises and institutions and make them harmless for good and all." One of

6351-487: The so-called Industrial Party Trial of 1930. All of these public spectacles seem to have been intended to send a political message, it is argued, that "older technical specialists from the old regime were not to be trusted and that [Communist] party members and Soviet citizens must be increasingly vigilant against enemies." Electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy . For utilities in

6438-444: The turbine to force a generator to spin. Natural gas power plants are more efficient than coal power generation, they however contribute to climate change, but not as highly as coal generation. Not only do they produce carbon dioxide from the ignition of natural gas, the extraction of gas when mined releases a significant amount of methane into the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants create electricity through steam turbines where

6525-413: The use of nuclear sources. Per unit of electricity generated coal and gas-fired power life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are almost always at least ten times that of other generation methods. Centralised generation is electricity generation by large-scale centralised facilities, sent through transmission lines to consumers. These facilities are usually located far away from consumers and distribute

6612-672: The worst effects of climate change. Like other organizations including the Energy Impact Center (EIC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the IEA has called for the expansion of nuclear and renewable energy to meet that objective. Some, like EIC founder Bret Kugelmass, believe that nuclear power is the primary method for decarbonizing electricity generation because it can also power direct air capture that removes existing carbon emissions from

6699-570: Was a Russified Pole and a history lecturer. His mother was a woman of letters who sympathised with the revolutionaries. His brother was a tsarist official, working for the Ministry of Finance. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at Saint Petersburg University in 1898, and practised law in Yaroslavl , while dabbling in literature. He had a novel published in 1905. In February 1905, his young daughter died of

6786-462: Was a British intelligence agent but later asserted that he had been overcome by exhaustion towards the end of the process and consented to write a statement. Monkhouse later recalled: "Towards late evening I began to get very tired.... Almost every phrase which [the interrogator] dictated I disputed, altered, and finally wrote in a form which I thought would satisfy him and yet not harm my employers’ high reputation. After midnight I felt that my nerve

6873-509: Was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who served as chairman of the OGPU , the secret police of the Soviet Union , from 1926 to 1934. Born to Polish parents in Saint Petersburg , Menzhinsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902. He emigrated from Russia in 1907, and spent the next decade in Europe and the United States. After the 1917 February Revolution , he joined

6960-749: Was about 1,120 watts in 2022, nearly two and a half times the global average per-capita electricity capacity in 1981. Iceland has the highest installed capacity per capita in the world, at about 8,990 watts. All developed countries have an average per-capita electricity capacity above the global average per-capita electricity capacity, with the United Kingdom having the lowest average per-capita electricity capacity of all other developed countries. Vyacheslav Menzhinsky Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky ( Russian : Вячесла́в Рудо́льфович Менжи́нский , Polish : Wiesław Rudolfowicz Mężyński ; 31 August [ O.S. 19 August] 1874 – 10 May 1934)

7047-419: Was abruptly cut short and Monkhouse was released under orders not to leave the city, apparently at the behest of OGPU chief Vyacheslav Menzhinsky . The Soviet secret police proved to be far from finished with Monkhouse or Metro-Vickers, however. On 13 March 1933, an official statement of the OGPU was published in the pages of Izvestiia , the official government newspaper, which stated: "An investigation by

7134-546: Was allowed to take a bath before being taken away to GPU headquarters at the Lubianka, where he was kept in a comparatively comfortable single isolation cell. After a difficult night, Monkhouse was taken to the examination department and interrogated. Monkhouse asserted that no physical torture, hypnotism, or drugs were used on him but that the interrogation was conducted for many hours on end, running without interruption from breakfast time until 2 am. Monkhouse denied repeatedly that he

7221-619: Was appointed Soviet consul general in Berlin, but in November, he was expelled, along with the Ambassador Adolph Ioffe . Posted to Ukraine, he joined Cheka in 1919, and five years later became a deputy chairman of its successor, the OGPU . After Felix Dzerzhinsky 's death in July 1926 Menzhinsky became the chairman of the OGPU. Menzhinsky played a great role in conducting the secret Trust and Sindikat-2 counterintelligence operations, in

7308-523: Was going. I was dead tired after the previous night’s search and arrest, and a very long day’s intensive examination. I felt my tongue and mouth so dry that they gave me considerable discomfort. My lips twitched in a way they had never done before. It was a hard mental effort to resist writing exactly what [the interrogator] dictated and, in any case, before I left the room that night, I wrote one or two paragraphs which I greatly regret having consented to write. I can only attribute my weakness in having done so to

7395-497: Was quickly adopted by many cities around the world, which adapted their gas-fueled street lights to electric power. Soon after electric lights would be used in public buildings, in businesses, and to power public transport, such as trams and trains. The first power plants used water power or coal. Today a variety of energy sources are used, such as coal , nuclear , natural gas , hydroelectric , wind , and oil , as well as solar energy , tidal power , and geothermal sources. In

7482-409: Was reported that the global electricity supply was approaching peak CO2 emissions thanks to the growth of solar and wind power. The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered in the 1820s and early 1830s by British scientist Michael Faraday . His method, still used today, is for electricity to be generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or Faraday disc , between the poles of

7569-653: Was secretary of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, while her brother joined the Bolshevik military organisation, until he was caught in a police raid in July 1906. He was released after two weeks in prison, after going on hunger strike, and emigrated. He lived in Belgium, Switzerland, France, United States, working in foreign branches of the RSDLP. When the Bolshevik faction split over the issue of whether to put up candidates for election to

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