describe how a coal burning power plant generates electricity?
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The coal fire heats water turning it to steam and the steam turns a turbine that generates power.
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In most electric power plants, water is heated and converted into steam, which drives a turbine-generator to produce electricity. Fossil-fueled power plants produce heat by burning coal, oil, or natural gas. In a nuclear power plant, the fission of Uranium atoms in the reactor provides the heat to produce steam for generating electricity.\n\nHeat is produced in a nuclear reactor when neutrons strike Uranium atoms causing them to fission in a continuous chain reaction. Control elements, which are made of materials that absorb neutrons, are placed among the fuel assemblies. When the control elements, or control rods as they are often called, are pulled out of the core, more neutrons are available and the chain reaction speeds up, producing more heat. When they are inserted into the core, more neutrons are absorbed, and the chain reaction slows or stops, reducing the heat. \n  Most commercial nuclear reactors use ordinary water to remove the heat created by the fission process. These are called light water reactors. The water also serves to slow down, or "moderate" the neutrons. In this type of reactor, the chain reaction will not occur without the water to serve as a moderator.
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Are you referring to hydroelectric power?\n\nWater behind the dam is stored energy called potential energy because it has the potential to do work, but isn't doing any work at the moment.  As the water flows down through the turbines of the hydroelectric plant, it is kinetic energy, or energy that is actually doing work.\n\nThe turbine spins a generator, which is connected to the power grid through transformers.\n\n\nA newer, experimental variant of hydroelectic power is using large volumes of water in man-made, elevated lakes to store energy.  During non-peak usage periods, such as late at night, electric pumps will pump water into these lakes.  Then, during peak usage periods, during the day (particularly the afternoon), the water is allowed to flow down through pipes to turbines to generate electricity again.   It's not a very efficient system, but does offer a possible way to store electricity until it's needed.
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There are many ways to create electricity, all basically involve converting another form of energy (usually kinetic energy, eg. hydroelectric plants, or heat energy, eg. nuclear,coal, geothermal).\n\nWikipedia has explantions of these, see the site in the source. It basically says:\n\nRotating turbines attached to electrical generators produce most commercially available electricity. Turbines may be driven by using steam, water, wind or other fluids as an intermediate energy carrier. The most common usage is by steam in fossil fuel power plants or nuclear power plants, and by water in hydroelectric dams. Small mobile generators are often driven by diesel engines, especially on ships, remote building sites or for emergency standby.\n\nFuel cells produce electricity using a variety of chemicals and are seen by some people to be the most likely source of power in the long term, especially if hydrogen can be used as the feedstock. However, hydrogen is usually only an energy carrier, and must be formed by some other power source.\n\nThe world relies mainly on coal and natural gas for power. The high capital requirements of nuclear power and the fear of its dangers have prevented the ordering of new nuclear power plants in North America since the 1970s.\n\nSteam turbines can be powered using steam produced from geothermal sources, solar energy, or Nuclear reactors, which use the energy created by the fission of radioactive plutonium or uranium to generate heat. Nuclear power plants often use a primary and secondary steam circuit to add an additional layer of protection between the location of the nuclear fuel and the generator room.\n\nHydroelectric power plants use water flowing directly through the turbines to power the generators. Tidal harnesses use the force of the moon on bodies of water to spin a turbine. Wind turbines use wind to turn turbines that are hooked up to a generator. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is used to level demands on the power grid.\n\nPower generation by thermonuclear fusion has been suggested as a possible way of generating electricity; currently a number of technical obstacles and environmental concerns stand in the way, but if realized fusion might provide a relatively clean and safe source of electrical power. The construction of a large experimental reactor (ITER) is expected to commence in 2005-2006.\n\n\nPlease also note that a few places around the world produce usuable electric power from sources like geothermal energy, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power, and wind power, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
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Electricity is a form of energy.\n\nIt can be generated from other forms of energy, for example, chemical energy (burning fuel, or a battery), mechanical energy (a windmill), nuclear energy (atomic fission reaction like in a power plant).\n\nIn a battery electrical energy is converted from the  potential energy stored in chemicals which is released when they combine.\n\nIn a fuel cell, chemical energy is released in another type of chemical reaction.\n\nNuclear plants, windmills, hydroelectric dams or burning fuel in a generator turns a turbine or motor which moves a coil of wire through a magnetic field which produces energy.\n\nIn thermoelectric energy, heat is turned into electricity when two different metals are heated.
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Actually, these natural resources are being used to generate electricity. There are drawbacks to each of them, as there are drawbacks to using coal and nuclear energy. \n\nSome of the top drawbacks to these forms of energy are:\n1) consistency - most people want power day or not, whether the wind blows or not and whether the river is high or not. \n2) energy content - these forms of energy are not as efficient as burning fuel, typically\n3) cost \n4) specific concerns, such as birds getting caught in wind turbines, fish habitat being destroyed by hydroelectric dams, etc.\n\nPutting these all together, there are significant hurdles to overcome.
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For an accurate answer you would need more parameters answered to address the question. The internal combustion of coal and also the units of energy you finally want it answered in Joules?
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Thermal power plant?  Commercial coal powered electric generator?  \nProbably done by Thomas Edison in 1882.  It was located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan.
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The potential energy, stored by the water due to its height, converts to kinetic energy as it falls. This turns the turbines which in turn create electrical energy.\n\nThis conversion requires the use of a generator (the rotation of the coils of wire that cuts through the magnetic fields of some magnets results in electricity forming; refer to Fleming.)
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This is a process where an individual or company generates electric power for their own use and sells any surplus to the power company. \n\nA  fairly popular cogeneration arrangement is the use of a gas turbine driven electric generator with waste heat recovery from the hot exhaust gases. This waste heat can be used in many ways from heating buildings to making steam and using the steam to generate more electric power.
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http://science.howstuffworks.com/electricity.htm
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Solar energy (from solar panels)  converts sunlight into electricity. Solar arrays (massive groups of solar panels) can be used to produce energy on an industrial scale, but the average solar panel is still expensive and produces very little power.  However these solar arrays can be attached to the power grid like a normal power plant.  \n   Coal  fired power plants are currently the primary fuel used to produce electricity in the US.  There are also a  very few oil/gas plants used to produce power.      Solar panels can be placed on very light weight vehicles (like bikes) as a primary power source.  However since the power produced from a solar panel is pretty small,  you will never see a viable commercial solar powered SUV in the next 15 years.
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it produces a lot of energy
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Moving water as in a river or water tuned to steam can turn a turbine and produce electricity.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine
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A generator produces a current by moving a wire through a magnetic field.  If you had an infinitely large magnetic field, you could move in one direction forever and produce a dc current.  However, it isn't practical to do that.\n\nInstead, you put a ball of wire inside a much smaller magnetic field and you spin it.  The ends of the wire have to be touching something to complete the circuit so electrons can flow.  At one part of the circle, the wire is moving left to right across the magnetic field and causes electrons to flow in one direction in the wire, in another part of the circle, the wire is moving from right to left and the electrons flow in the opposite direction.  This is what causes the current to alternate.\n\nSo, when converting motive energy into electricity, ac current is the easiest to produce.  This is like what is produced by a car's alternator or a hydro-electric plant.
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How was the electricity produced?  If it was from coal, then it is a dirtier form of energy than Natural gas.\n\nIt is more efficient to heat with natural gas than electricity.\n\nNormally, it is more efficient to cool with electricity than with natural gas.\n\nNatural gas is a non-renewable resource (at present).  Electricity can be produced by hydro-electric, coal, solar, wind, etc.\n\nHouses don't explode when they have an electricity leak, they can explode from a gas leak.
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Metal Forging (using water to cool off the large hot steel - steam could be used to turn turbines to generate electricity