Hooooooooooooooooooot

Comments

• empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Water and steam just too goddamn convenient. Super high latent heat so it can move a ton of energy with a quick phase change, works at reasonable pressures and temperatures, stays liquid all the time when you want it to, and it’s so readily available as to be damn near free. Super cool!

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  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    also almost non-corrosive, non-toxic, doesn’t damage ozone layer, zero global warming potential, non-flammable etc (lots of organic rankine cycle fluids fail one or more of these. tradeoff is utilization of lower temperature sources)

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    • marcos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      zero global warming potential

      This one isn’t right. Nobody will complain about you releasing it, but it’s a quite strong global warming gas.

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  • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s great for nuclear reactors. Hot rock make turbine go brrr

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    • Steve@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Best explanation of nuclear energy I’ve ever heard

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    • Steve@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Nuclear energy is solar too

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• Glowstick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Solar photovoltaic is the only one i can think of that isn’t just a fancy way to make steam

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  • NegativeInf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Piezoelectricity is the only other I can really think of.

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    • agressivelyPassive@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Why not, though?

      On a serious note: that’s exactly what we’re doing with lighters. At least some of them use piezo elements and not the sparkly wheel thingy to ignite the gas. And it’s real fun to zap yourself with it.

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    • Jyek@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Wait a minute, what IF

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    • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Give buskers the acoustic guitar with a link to the grid and every time they play they’ll generate a ton of electricity (in relative terms…)

      Electro-Acoustic guitars use piezos to pick up the audio if you didn’t know

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    • Glowstick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Even if we used piezo, the movement of the hanger would still have to come from some power source, which would still be the same sources like moving steam, water, or wind.

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    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      piezoelectricity is just simple electric motor

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  • Voyajer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    All power generation is either solar or ‘make thing spin’, unless we’re including RTGs.

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    • rainynight65@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But not all electricity generation is based on boiling water. Wind, hydro and tidal don’t need to generate large amounts of heat to make steam that spins a turbine, they just use natural movement to do so.

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    • wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Peltier Effect?

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    • Steve@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Solar thermal power…

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    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      All of these are in some way heat engines

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  • lledrtx@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    What about Wind Mills?

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    • drolex@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Wind is just dry steam

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  • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Hydro power uses running water not hot water.

    Squeezing can be converter to electricity with pizeo electric. Heat difference can be converted into electric directly with peltier devices. Both of these are very inefficient ways to make electricy.

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    • Zorg@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m the spirit of this comment, water is just cold steam.

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  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    there are also fuel cells

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  • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The peltier effect can be used to generate electricity from a thermal gradient. It’s not very efficient, though. There’s a reason mechanical means of electrical production predominate.

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  • Faresh@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I guess aeolic energy also doesn’t use steam (unless we count the air humidity), but still involves turning a turbine.

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    • lens17@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Excuse my blatant ignorance, but what is aeolic energy? I’ve never heard about it before.

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  • Resonosity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Aerokinetics/hydrokinetics as well. With steam, we’re creating the source fluid that turns the turbines to make electricity. Those source fluids can also exist as wind/tides/rivers naturally.

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• FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That’s why Photovoltaic Cells got the Nobel Prize, imo. The only new way to generate electricity actually put to use AFAIK.

  Of course it’s completely inefficient at large scale and they just revert back to mirroring light into a collection tower where steam happens.

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  • agressivelyPassive@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Wasn’t the main appeal of the mirror installations that you can store the heat somewhat efficiently? Rooftop solar is cost effective even here in Germany, where darkness and shadows loom around every corner.

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    • angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The nonchalant poetry of your reply made me look up and appreciate your username.

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    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      These numbers change every year, but: solar panels on roofs don’t track so they’d be lucky to get 20%, average closer to 12%, efficiency and slowly degrade over a few years. Sun tracking panels can reach a maximum of around 40%, theoretically, but on average more like . You have to subtract the negative impact of creating and assembling the materials from it’s lifetime effectiveness, in Germany I believe Hydrogen Steel exists which is much greener than other types of smelting, or otherwise Aluminum is the higher grade material used for such things, and Photovoltaic Panels have a very specialized Glass in most cases that has to be exceptionally clear and strong. If the capacitance of the system is not enough to hold the produced power then an electrical failure will occur, so you must also include large commercial and industrial batteries.

      Meanwhile, a Heliostat (a Collection Tower and Mirror Array) out in the desert has a theoretical efficiency just below 70%. Furthermore, if the capacity of the grid fills up then the array can be disable by adjusting the mirrors and excess power can be stored for extremely long periods of time by utilizing molten salt beneath the tower.

      These efficiency numbers refer to how much of the heat energy from full spectrum light hitting the array is converted into electricity. Home panels are nice because you can put them on your home

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    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      it’s both, but i’m not sure if these large solar concentrators (ivanpah or these things in spain) are more efficient than current pv panels

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There’s also wind. But that just skips the steam

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    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There is an argument to be made that the wind power is technically steam power, given the moist gaseous fluid turning a turbine, but that’s silly.

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    • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Buy it’s all better than the old smoky steam we used to use

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  • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Cost per MWh is what tends to matter more than efficiency. Photovoltaics have become dirt cheap. Mirror collection systems haven’t been able to keep up, and the projects for them are basically defunct at this point.

    Was worth trying, though. It wasn’t obvious that photovoltaics would get so damn cheap 10 or 20 years ago.

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  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    great for satellites tho

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  • fidodo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Is it that they’re inefficient or harder to maintain?

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    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yes. Heliostat’s max efficiency estimates are like 70%, sun tracking panels 40%, static panels 20%.

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• reverendsteveii@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  “I found a new source of naturally occurring waste heat”

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• mumblerfish@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Image

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  • slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yep. Angry rock make water go hiss.

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• Rossphorus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Some types of fusion can bypass steam generation and use what’s creatively called Direct Energy Conversion. If the fusion products are charged particles they can be passed through a magnetic field to separate them based on charge and collected onto plates. When you look at the electric potential between the plates you’ve effectively created a voltage, no steam necessary. It’s also theoretically possible to do the same with some types of fission products too.

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  • anothercatgirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I thought they take advantage of the velocity of the charged ions to magnetically transfer power to electromagnetic coils around the reactor.

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    • Rossphorus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There’s a whole bunch of mechanisms, largely depending on the fusion architecture and the atoms being fused. For tokamak reactors the circular nature lends itself well to what you describe, though usually it’s energy being imparted into the ions to keep them contained and away from the walls. In the ‘standard’ deuterium-tritium fusion model (the easiest to perform) fusion produces a helium nucleus and a neutron, where the neutron gets most of the energy. Since a neutron can’t be contained by magnets it impacts the chamber walls. This heat is wicked away by, you guessed it, cooling water which turns into steam. In order to use a direct energy conversion strategy you need a fusion reaction that produces no neutrons, but we’re not there yet.

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• ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  generate energy.

  not generate electricity.

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  • TheUniverseandNetworks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    generate energy.

    not generate electricity.

    generate energy the other way around.

    not generate electricity.

    generate energy.

    not generate electricity.

    generate energy the other way around.

    not generate electricity…

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• dessalines@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  /uj Steam is just an intermediary form for almost all these tho (except maybe geothermal? not sure), not the real source.

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  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Steam just makes sense as a fluid for heat engines, thermal power plants are mostly steam, except when gas turbines are involved, but even then there’s most of the time steam bottoming cycle. (gas turbine burns something, then exhaust is hot enough to power steam cycle) Unless thermal power plant is small, then it’s more likely to be diesel engine (up to few MW). Only when it’s photovoltaics, or hydropower, or wind farm (or tidal powerplant, or some other weird ones) there’s no place for steam to be involved (solar thermal plants sometimes use steam cycle). Geothermal powerplants use steam if source is hot enough, otherwise it’s something more volatile in organic Rankine cycle

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    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Hydroelectric is just liquid steam, and wind is just cold, thin steam.

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    • dessalines@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m referring to the root energy source, rather than how it’s transferred.

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  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Geothermal power still uses steam to generate electricity. It’s steams all the way down.

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    • dessalines@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Steam isn’t the energy source tho, just a transfer mechanism.

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  • tja@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Solar is an exception I think

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    • zout@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      True, but there are also solar steam systems, using a parabolic mirror to focus the sun on a steam drum.

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    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Solar, wind, and hydro don’t use steam.

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  • Kjev@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    and diodes

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• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I like piezoelectrics and kinetic generators. The only two methods of generating electricity I know of that don’t involve steam other than solar panels.

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  • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Piezoelectric effect is when you vibrate certain crystals and they give off electricity. It’s also reversible. You can feed them electricity to generate sound. The beep-boop from electronic devices is usually from a piezo speaker, because they’re dirt cheap.

    You don’t get significant amounts of power out of it, though.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah it’s quartz lol

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    • Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah. The one thing I ever saw that has me excited for a product that could exist, is that they can power a simple OLED display. And since an OLED display can be paper thin, they could put one in a t-shirt and you could have an animated design on your shirt instead of just a static picture. And that would be dope.

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They’re different. The piezoelectric effect converts pressure to charge. However steam is just kinetic with an extra step

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• FreshLight@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It always produces unbelievably great memes when another person discovers how humanity generates energy from splitting atoms. I was baffled, too.

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It just makes sense. Our only way to convert electromagnetic radiation to current is photovoltaics, so solar. No way to convert alpha/beta radiation to current. So what else does fission release? Fuckload of motion. Mostly heat if it’s not as a blast, in which case it’s still mostly heat but with a pressure wave that levels cities. Heat though, heat were real good at making into electricity.

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• paddirn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If/when aliens ever visit us, it’ll be with glorified steam engines.

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• Num10ck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  is it time for steam cars to make a come back?

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  • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Nothing I’d love more than waking up an hour early to stoke my car’s boiler.

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    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Giggity

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• TheRealLinga@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Donnieeeeeee

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