Nuclear power is just steampunk with magic rocks.
power generator
Submitted 3 weeks ago by pico@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/50b3937d-f268-42db-a64f-08b5c1f7d9cd.jpeg
Comments
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
4am@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Spicy rocks
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Too spicy for Ukraine, circa 1986.
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So spicy they make everything around them spicy.
kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I actually don’t know why people get so hung up on this. When you are making energy it’s easiest to make heat, and boiling water through a turbine is a really efficient way to turn heat into motion and we’re really good at doing it and turning motion into electricity. The fact that multiple ways of making heat exist is not surprising, the fact that different methods of making heat use the same, most efficient, well understood method for turning heat into electricity is even less surprising.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Because it feels archaic and inefficient, maybe?
We also have developed solar panels, wind turbines, hydro-electric dams as well as tidal/wave energy devices in the intervening years - so adding another method to boil water just feels “outdated”.
I’m not trying to cast judgement myself, just trying to explain that it feels like it’s just “vibes based”.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Take a look at a modern supercritical steam turbine, this thing can run on 600C steam. there’s nothing archaic about it (it can be more efficient as a part of combined cycle)
Hydropower and windmills are older than steam
swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I had an idea for a dumb Star Trek meme, based on the episode where they explain how Romulan warp drives work, but extrapolating that to “it boils water and spins a turbine”. Maybe one of the Star Trek memers can take this and run with it?
vithigar@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Three of your four examples are already outputting mechanical energy of motion so don’t need the intervening conversion step provided by steam.
ch00f@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The problem is there’s an upper limit on how much useful energy you can extract from a heat engine.
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
AND that can maintain absolute Zero on that cold side. Getting heat to leave into the void at those temps is a battle
frank@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I’m an EE by schooling and I’ve worked in both gas turbine and wind power. Photovoltaics blow my fucking mind. Everything else is just spinning magnets to extract power. PVs are insanely cool
marcos@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Take a look at reverse electro-dialysis.
It’s pushing thermal energy into electricity directly by the force of entropy.
frank@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s a super rad tech! A bit pricey but a neat renewable that almost generates opposite to solar in a way, in that if it’s raining you’re getting some energy in the form of fresh water
Can you ELI10 an intuitive explanation on why the salinity gradient provides energy? It doesn’t make intuitive sense to me and never has. Like why is fresh water mixing with salt water energy positive?
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Your name makes me think you’re about to lather your own naked body in vasoline, and hide inside the couch.
frank@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I’m known to lather a bit, as a treat.
Rooskie91@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
Personally, I like the mirror plants that use the suns energy to superheat salt.
And then use that to boil water. /s
For real, what China is doing with PVs is pretty fucking cool.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Where wind
Klox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Step 1: boil the ocean
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Isn’t that was unchecked capitalism is already doing?
danekrae@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Boiling water, obviously!
5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
No, wind is spinning magnets. Everything except photovoltaics and fuel cells is spinning magnets. (Everything with boiling water is also spinning magnets)
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s also due to water being boiled. Just in a different, many steps removed manner.
pennomi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The new supercritical CO2 generators are pretty cool. Pretty much the same thing but no water!
chaogomu@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Those systems are interesting, but also nightmares to build and maintain.
Supercritical co2 is a powerful solvent and can corrode most metals.this problem is worse when you increase the temperature.
Material scientists are working on it, but so far, the few test systems that have been built can’t quite live up to the hype.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
“I have an idea for a comic!”
“Is it you getting angry and sulking on the couch?”
cornshark@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What’s the original comic?
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well when you invent a new way to convert rotational energy into multi-phase AC please let us all know
Goodeye8@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Explosions?
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fuck I forgot about internal combustion…
Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Boiler water and spin magnets
Zwiebel@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Lorents force go wheeeee
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Turbine go vrrrrrr
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Can’t wait for fusion and magnetic hydrogen.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The idea …
Send water on a 150 million kilometer pipeline to the sun to super heat it … then pipe the steam back to power a turbine
nightwatch_admin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Baby Dyson Sphere go brrr
lime@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
dyson tube
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Dyson Straw.
tempest@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
What if the pipeline already existed… But it was made of light
JoShmoe@ani.social 3 weeks ago
Shut up science
danekrae@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Image
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Wouldn’t even need to run it out that far and we don’t have the material science to handle temperatures near the sun.
applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
this is just the inverse of concentrated solar. you bring the pipe closer to the light rather than bringing the light closer to the pipe.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
You’re not invited to the team building the Solar Dyson Tube Project
_stranger_@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
new idea, we bring the sun closer to the Earth, run everything on boiling rock.
myotheraccount@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The pipe can double as a space elevator