1. All electric currents are flows of electrons? Wrong.
Electric currents are not just flows of electrons, they are flows of electric charge. Both protons and electrons posses exactly the same amount of ‘electricity.’ If either the protons *OR* the electrons flow, that flow is an electric current. In salt water, in fluorescent bulbs, and in battery acid, atoms with extra protons can flow along, and this flow is a genuine electric current. And in fuel cell membranes and in solid ice, electric current is actually a flow of protons.
Charges of “electricity” are carried both by electrons and protons. These two types of particles have very different weights (mass), but both have exactly the same amount of charge. Electrons are easily removed from atoms, while protons USUALLY are stuck to other protons, but that doesn’t affect the amount of charge they carry. If we remove an electron from an atom, that atom is left with too many protons, and that’s the only reason why the atom has an excess of positive electric charge. ALL positive charges in objects and in circuits are created by protons.
Electrons and protons are matter, not energy. A flow of electrons is NOT a flow of energy, it is a flow of matter and of electric charge. Same goes for protons. And if you have a certain amount of charge in one place, you’ll have no clue about the amount of energy present. Coulombs are not Joules, and knowing the amount charge does not tell you the amount of energy you have. A moving electron does not carry energy along, any more than a moving air molecule carries a sound wave with it.
“Electricity” (meaning charge) has weight because charge is part of matter particles. A flow of charge always requires a flow of carrier particles, so electric current must always carry mass with it. Electric current in a wire is not a flow of energy, it is a flow of matter. Ion currents in an electroplating bath are a flow of considerable amounts of matter: electric currents can transport material. However, in normal circuits we rarely notice the moving mass. There are two reasons for this: the flow is circular, so an electric current doesn’t need to build up mass anywhere. Secondly, the flow is very very slow, so even if the current were moving a huge amount of mass, we’d never notice this.
Positive charge is not made of “missing electrons.” Positive charge is a genuine type of charge in its own right. Yes, when protons and electrons are near each other, their charges cancel. Removing the electrons exposes the charge on the protons, and that’s probably where this particular misconception originates. Since neutral atoms receive an imbalance of positive charge when electrons are removed, is seems like positive charge is nothing but missing electrons. This is wrong. If you have a handful of protons, you have a handful of positive charge. A proton is not a missing electron. And if you have a vacuum, a total lack of electrons, that doesn’t mean that any positive charges are present.
Current in a metal wire is a flow of electrons, but in many other conductors both the positive and negative charges can flow. For example, when you get a shock, no electrons flow through your body. The electric current inside your tissues is made of positively charged atoms flowing one way and negatively charged atoms flowing the other. The same is true of electrical currents in salt water, in the ground, and in battery electrolyte. When your car battery is supplying 300 amps to the starter motor, 300A worth of ions is flowing through the battery acid, and half of these are carrying positive charge. Also, plasmas can have positive ion currents as well as negative electron flows: examples are neon signs, fluorescent lights, camera flashes, and sparks of all kinds. There are even some conductors where the current is a flow of positive hydrogen ions, +H ions, otherwise known as protons. One common “proton conductor” is ice. Others are used as solid electrolytes in exotic batteries and, more recently are found as proton-conductor solid electrolyte membranes in tiny fuel cells.
“Static” or imbalanced charges can be created by removing electrons from a neutral atom. They can also be created by adding or removing charged atoms from an object, and the ions being removed can be negative or positive ions. It is even possible to add or remove bare protons from some materials (after all, protons are the same as H+ positively charged hydrogen atoms.) If you have some positively-charged water, or ice, or acid, then you probably have too many bare protons (too many H+ ions.)
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