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 so pumps work, and it's so readily available as to be damn near free. Super cool!
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)
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.
Very strong GWP, but it does this cool thing where it condenses when it hits colder air and falls back to the ground in liquid state, thus removing itself from the atmosphere...
(It's equivalent GWP is near zero and is estimated to be between 0.0005 and -0.001)
it condenses when it hits colder air and falls back to the ground in liquid state, thus removing itself from the atmosphere
Oh sure ... blame it on the rain.
Tell me more about this incredible process. Does it have a name?
If it doesn't I propose a simple and descriptive "waterfall".
Power station fall-out
But it can be contained and condensed for reused.
It’s great for nuclear reactors. Hot rock make turbine go brrr
Best explanation of nuclear energy I’ve ever heard
Solar photovoltaic is the only one i can think of that isn't just a fancy way to make steam
EDIT
ok let's clarify to say a method that isn't related to movement of a fluid that spins a turbine. So not windmills (air is a fluid), not hydro, not geothermal, etc.
Piezoelectricity is the only other I can really think of. But it's not like we are out here smacking crystals with hammers to make power.
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.
Yeah, it was a fun journey of learning to look into it. It’s quartz btw. Very piezoelectric and extremely common.
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
Wait a minute, what IF
All power generation is either solar or 'make thing spin', unless we're including RTGs and Piezoelectrics.
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.
I'm the spirit of this comment, water is just cold steam.
How do you feel about water ice being a mineral?
"I found a new source of naturally occurring waste heat"
Yep. Angry rock make water go hiss.
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.
/uj Steam is just an intermediary form for almost all these tho (except maybe geothermal? not sure), not the real source.
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
Hydroelectric is just liquid steam, and wind is just cold, thin steam.
Geothermal power still uses steam to generate electricity. It's steams all the way down.
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.
At least, I think they're different... Is a standard copper wire+magnet generator pizeoelectric? Or is it simply the operation is similar in that you generate electricity from moving things together? Like the difference between tiny little things in your shirt that generate electricity as you move around vs those flash lights you shake to charge.
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 sound from small 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.
Yeah it’s quartz lol
Also photovoltaic is reversible as well! Put light in get current out, put current in, get light out. But the diodes that get good light for the currents we use are shit for generating the current we like from the light we have and vice versa. Also! Most diodes are these types! That’s why we make their casing black, otherwise the light will interfere with computation!
They’re different. The piezoelectric effect converts pressure to charge. However steam is just kinetic with an extra step
It always produces unbelievably great memes when another person discovers how humanity generates energy from splitting atoms. I was baffled, too.
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.
If/when aliens ever visit us, it’ll be with glorified steam engines.
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