We’ve gotten really, really good at extracting energy from steam, steam turbines can be incredibly efficient, I can’t recall exact figures but Wikipedia cites 90% as the top end.
We’ve gotten really, really good at extracting energy from steam, steam turbines can be incredibly efficient, I can’t recall exact figures but Wikipedia cites 90% as the top end.
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
True, but that’s just one part of the process. Compared to actual chemical energy in the source fuel, most plants
If nothing else, there’s an absolute efficiency limit from Carnot’s theorem. Even for the most modern and efficient gas plants, the limit seems to be ~60%, and for nuclear or coal, it’s much lower at around 30-40%.