Comment on nuclear

stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s all variations of “make things spin.”

  Either by heating up water so steam makes thing spin, using wind to make thing spin, or moving water to make thing spin.

  The only kind of energy conversion I can think of that doesn’t make thing spin is an ICE. It makes thing go up and down with boom, which in turn makes something spin.

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I am willing to bet if you watched photo cells on solar panels under a microscope, the light would make something spin.

    Nope, solar cells are solid state devices. ;)

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Nope, solar cells are solid state devices. ;)

      except for the fact that you actually want a grid tied interia component for stability.

      So even in that case, you still tangentially need a “spinning mass” even if emulated in software with how it supplies energy to the grid. It’s still technically there.

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      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Have you considered supercapacitors could be used for that?

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  • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Electrons are suspiciously close to spinning dynamos, so even just moving electrons might be considered spinning something.

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• Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Only alternatives that I’m aware of:

  • solar cells (converting photon energy into electricity)
  • acid batteries (converting chemical energy into electricity)
  • peltier devices (converting heat differential energy into electricity)
  • induction (converting electrical energy into electricity on a different circuit)
  • bioelectricity (using biochemical energy to produce electricity)
  • static buildup (using friction between various materials to produce a voltage differential)

  I think there’s a way to use lasers to generate electricity, too.

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  • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Piezo converting pressure or vibration to electricity

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I think it’s note-worthy that while the list is long, only 3 of them are practical to supply/regulate electricity on a large/industrial scale: solar, spinny things, and acid batteries.

    We use all three of them in today’s and in the future’s electricity network.

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  • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Producing acid batteries, or any batteries isn’t power generation. It’s turning chemical potential (which was generally produced in an energy-consuming process) into a storage device for electrical potential.

    Induction is just changing the properties of your electricity, not generation.

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    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      They are all just ways of converting energy from one form into electricity. Every single one of the ways we “generate” electricity ultimately comes from gravitational energy. By the time we use it to power electrical circuits, it all has gone through various energy-consuming/losing processes.

      The list wasn’t so much a “ways to create electric energy that aren’t spinning turbines” as a “power sources for electric circuits that aren’t spinning turbines”, which is why I included chemical and electrical, even though they often aren’t very useful without another source of electric power.

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      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Fair enough. As you said, none of these are net producers of electricity if your thermodynamic system is big enough to count as closed.

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  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I think there’s a way to use lasers to generate electricity, too.

    i’ve read some really cursed direct photonic conversion theory from nuclear energy. It’s uh, novel. Definitely a pipe dream though.

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