All of humanities technological advancements can be summed up in ever more complex ways to boil water
That’s why photovoltaics need much more R&D. They are the only true advancement in electricity production since the inception of broadly adopted electrification.
Exactly why we should ditch them. We shall not break tradition. Praise be the turbine
Hollowed be thy pipes
Anoint me in condensate
Blessed be the holy turbine, we seek guidance in its rotation. Long may it spin and bring forth a bounteous current.
It doesn’t rotate to generate electricity? Must be blasphemy.
Also fuel cells.
Hey we burn things just for heat too.
Yeah, heat to boil water
We heat homes, smelt ore, many industrial things.
We heat homes by heating water and putting the hot water through pipes into wall mounted iron tanks so that the water cools down again…
Not everyone uses radiators. My system is a forced air furnace.
We heat water molecules in air.
Floor heating is state of the art here, no radiators. Water pipes in screed.
Fireplaces?
And water
We smelting water tonight?
Not only water as per the original comment. You need heat to smelt ore and do any number of industrial things to progress society.
But then you quench that ore in water! It’s just heating water with extra steps!
I think to be more general it boils down to just oxidate stuff.
/pun intended
Boil shit, burn shit, and blow shit up. Humans in a nut shell.
Oh boy just wait till you hear how fossil fuels work
That’s just steam power with extra steps!
I’ve got bad news for ya bruv
Wait till you find out how nuclear fusion makes electricity
You mean, how it will in 20 years?
Perpetually so
It’s like Musk time. In 20 years it’ll only be 20 years away.
Helion’s approach is actually different. They are attempting to capture energy directly through induction. I hope it pans out for them, seems like a really interesting approach.
That seems inefficient
Here’s a video I saw a few months back you might find interesting:
We can do it now, just haven’t found a way to scale it and make it economical yet.
ITER is doing a great job on that front
There’s actually two (at least that I know of) ways for fusion to generate electricity, this is a newer one https://youtu.be/uRaQLZaaHWo?si=DTwV26inm1pyrYn8
Don’t leave us ice cold.
Our entire society* has been based on burning things. Then we progressed to… burning atoms.
(*Exceptions I can think of is solar, wind, hydro.)
Then we’re leaching off the sun burning atoms.
Ohhhhh!
ACKSHUALLY you’re not burning atoms in a nuclear reaction. You’re creating a chain reaction of neutrons colliding with Uranium isotopes. No combustion.
Solar farms did start out as using the sun to boil water. Basically mirrors redirecting light to a central point to super-heat a pipe flowing with water.
Theres actually been a major increase in solar thermal power stations in the last few years
Oh so that’s what that big central tower in New Vegas was. I never put two and two together.
Wind and hydro still have to spin a turbine. Solar is the one true stand out advancement in electricity production since we started using electricity.
They spin it directly though, not via steam.
To be fair, the atmos were going to burn anyhow. We just clumped them together to make better use of them.
They can’t all be photonic inversion.
I like RTGs way more
If you don’t like that don’t look up PWRs, they don’t boil water to boil water.
Well Rotating a rotor on a generator is the most convenient way to make electricity with parts that last a long amount of time. Also doesn’t help that we use AC power while other sources like photovoltaic produce DC power which needs to be converted to be used.
Helion Energy seem to solve this problem
Don’t forget about the deadly waste product!
Deadly, horrible waste product that is processed and made so safe you can literally kiss it. But don’t let me get in the way of fearmongering.
Kyle Hill has done so much good in combating the absolute minefield of fearmongering and misinformation surrounding Nuclear power.
As long as you play by the rules, it’s incredibly safe. It’s when you start taking shortcuts and start fucking around that you find out… and there are plenty of things more likely to kill you than nuclear.
Okay, but what about all of the leaking nuclear waste stockpiles? What about the very real nuclear meltdowns that have happened that have resulted in the complete evacuation and condemnation of vast tracts of land that are now totally unusable?
What about the toxic fumes from burning fossil fuels literally killing ppl every year? What about the damaged ecosystems from hydro power dams? What about the unrecyclable wind turbine blades that end up in landfill? What about them shiny solar panels in the winter when you have a few hours of sun mostly hidden behind clouds?
Every energy production has its drawbacks otherwise we wouldn’t have so many issues with global warming. The thing is, when looking at how much damage the fossil fuels did compared to 3 nuclear accidents, I think there is a clear winner.
We write down what went wrong and try not to blow up the next one?
Same thing we do when anything blows up really
I see your youtuber, and raise you Scientific American with quotes by actual doctors and nuclear technicians. In detail, the article explores all of the myriad ways that nuclear power is the opposite of kissable. My fav? Illinois isn’t on a fault line, but they send all of their spent nuclear fuel to Nevada, where it is stored on a fault line.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-lethal-trash-or-renewable-energy-source/
2009 is basically ancient by today’s standards.
