system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If electricity returns in a circuit, how does it ever actually get "used"?

If I plug in my lamp into the socket, and the power runs through my bulb, creates light and heat, but then the electrons return back into the socket, how does it get used up at all? Are some electrons lost as heat and energy?
gpt
The electrons in electricity are not like gasoline in an engine, they are more like water in a water wheel. Their movement provides the power but they aren't consumed in the process. There needs to be a return path (or a path to ground) in order for them to flow because they can't just bunch up at the other end. Like the water in a dam which is let over a water wheel to drive it, the electrons flowing are used to do work and the energy is derived from the greater potential of their arrangement being released, not because they are themselves a "fuel".