Open Menu
AllLocalCommunitiesAbout
lotide
AllLocalCommunitiesAbout
Login

But yes.

⁨829⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨fossilesque@mander.xyz⁩ to ⁨science_memes@mander.xyz⁩

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/f1ea9e76-d5cf-4af0-95ca-b2fef56d28a6.png

source

Comments

Sort:hotnewtop
  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Reminds me of the meme using the Donnie Darko psychologist template.

    Donnie: I made a new form of power generation.

    Psychologist: New or steam?

    Donnie: Steam…

    source
    • Draegur@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Steam implies water! What if we used some OTHER phase-change working fluid? :D

      ||(No idea what, though. my question is implied with a playful tone and is at least 50% facetious; any actual discussion that might result would be little more than a pleasant coincidence)||

      source
      • MehBlah@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        You want to see weird water look up super critical boilers. That stuff was nasty. A regular steam leak will set things on fire. That stuff would explode a broom. We looked for the leaks with straw brooms. You can’t see steam in normal conditions. Only its effects.

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Tag yourself! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerant

        source
      • chaogomu@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Molten salt?

        We can then use compressed CO2 in the place of steam to drive the turbine.

        source
      • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Like Dr. Pepper?

        source
  • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    So a nucler reactor is just a kettle with an extra spicy heating element?

    source
    • neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yes. Water + spicy rocks. Everything else is solar power, which is also nuclear power, but with the spiciness in the sky instead.

      source
      • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Fun fact. Coal plants release more radioactive materials than nuclear plants.]

        Except the ones that blew up. Those ones were extra spicy.

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
        • Solar panels: Direct sky-spiciness to electricity conversion
        • Wind: Sky-spiciness made the air move
        • Hydroelectric: Sky-spiciness lifted the water up, gravity brings it down
        • Fossil fuels: Really old stored sky-spiciness from ancient plants
        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • jagungal@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I mean, radioactive isotopes are formed in supernovae, so it’s really just solar power from a different sun, right?

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Not spicy. Everyone knows nuclear power is lemon-lime flavored.

      source
      • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Taste: slightly metallic, not great, not terrible.

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Cherenkov: The blue raspberry of nuclear radiation

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        No! I vanted orange!

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Most power generation is just steam spinning turbines. Solar’s just weird. Wind cuts out the steam loop.

      source
      • BleatingZombie@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        What about hydro electric? It uses cold steam

        source
      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Reflective solar is normal at least. But photovoltaics are weird. Even weirder is that they’re LEDs backwards, and the fact that transistors just are like that is why they’re encased in black plastic

        source
    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That’s not a spicy challenge id be willing to try.

      source
  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This is reminds me of a quote from one of the Encased loading screens.

    To paraphrase it “Power generation before was about turning a turbine with steam. Under the Dome we have this fancy technology that we use to…turn a turbine with steam.”

    source
  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It was realizing that a lot of our power is still, at its core, a steam engine

    source
    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We discovered a banger like 200 years ago and have held on tight until eight about now with wind/solar/hydro.

      Still going to be using their geothermal/fission/fusion for at least another 200 years though.

      source
      • Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Hydro is just more dense steam, wind is less dense steam, it’s steam engines all the way!

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • Lussy@hexbear.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Mechanical engineers fist pumping after finding out their entire profession is not yet obsolete

      source
    • hobovision@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      More like a steam turbine (which is way cooler cause it’s like a jet engine). Steam engine makes me think of a piston engine like on a train.

      source
    • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Seems to be just photovoltaics and spinny things.

      source
      • Phoonzang@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        There’s also fuel cells, where fuel is not burned to create steam to move something, but combined with oxygen in a different way (the end products still being the same) so the electrons shuttled around during this reaction can be utilised as electricity. Think of combustion as oxidation of your fuel, the oxidation meaning that you (among other things) move electrons from the fuel to oxygen. In combustion, unfortunately you can’t access the electrons directly, as they are always stuck in the chemical bonds of the molecules, that’s why we take the detour via heat/mechanical - the steam engine. The fuel cell now separates fuel and oxygen, and thus divides the combustion reaction into two parts that happen at opposite sides of the cell. Those sides are divided by a membrane that does not allow the electrons to transfer across, so they need to take a detour through an electric circuit, in which we can harvest them as electrical power.

        I always found it really fascinating that fuel cells are the only other technology than solar where the electrons we use as electrical power are more or less directly generated as opposed to the detour via a generator. Unfortunately, fuel cells are still a very niche technique.

        source
  • FauxPseudo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nuclear power is just steampunk with magic rocks.

    source
  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nearly all power generation comes down to boiling water to steam which spins a turbine.

    I can only think of two common exceptions off the top of my head. Solar is an exception and Hydro power is an exception ironically, that usually uses the vertical difference and gravity to spin the turbine.

    source
    • nBodyProblem@lemmy.world ⁨46⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      There are gas turbine generators that directly use shaft power to generate electricity

      source
    • davidgro@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Wind turbines also.

      But some solar does focus it on a tower to make steam to drive a turbine.

      source
    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yeah, who would have guessed that modernity was invented by someone who stuck magnets to a fidget spinner and strapped it to a boiler.

      source
    • subtext@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      One could even argue that hydro power is just boiling water, letting it condense, and then letting it spin a turbine

      source
      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I’ve never heard of Hydro power boiling water. Usually hydro power is natural or pumped storage.

        You’re just taking water from an upper reservoir and dropping it to a downstream river. Either a naturally-filled reservoir/lake, or a pumped storage reservoir where you use other cheap power during low usage periods to pump that water to a higher reservoir to utilize later. The pump doesn’t heat the water, it just moves it uphill to utilize later, like the Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station in Missouri.

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • usrtrv@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Wind? And binary cycle geothermal plants but not sure how common they are.

      source
  • dalekcaan@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nuclear power is just boiling water

    source
    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Hydro?

      source
      • dalekcaan@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Nuclear power is just boiling water

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I bet there is a way more efficient way to harness it that we are just missing too lol

      source
  • Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    God damnit Jinyang!

    source
    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Errich, is the refrigerator running? This is Mike Hunt, and he’s a rich.

      source
    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Eric Bachman, this is your mother. You are not my son.

      source
    • jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “This is you as an old man. I’m ugly and dead alone.”

      source
  • unlawfulbooger@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I heard that somewhere in the US there were parts of a nuclear power plant being delivered by steam train. So that’s basically one steam engine supplying another! (^^,)

    I can’t seem to find an article about it anywhere, so it might be an urban legend :(

    source
    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Big Steam is playing us for suckers!

      source
      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        They’re just spinning us in circles!

        source
    • frezik@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Given that the first commercial nuclear power plants in the US were coming online in the late 1950s, that’s entirely possible. Steam trains were well on their way out by then, but there were still a few hauling freight around.

      source
      • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Sail ships continued to be used well into the 20th century. The absolute last purely sail powered warship served during WW1!

        source
  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nuclear power is the refining distilling and enriching of uranium into unstable isotopes and higher elements, boiling water is one small step in converting nuclear energy into electrical energy.

    source
    • Rolder@reddthat.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      But it’s one of the most important steps because it’s where the actual electricity comes from.

      source
    • uis@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      into unstable isotopes

      No, they were there all along.

      source
  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The issue is that boiling water is inside human bodies

    source
  • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    There are some fusion designs that use direct energy conversion.

    source
  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    plus a side of extra spicy land and groundwater

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

    source
    • Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That’s from building nuclear weapons though, not power

      source
  • uis@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And then there is thermonuclear generators

    source
  • Draegur@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    “what if fire… But… MOAR”

    source
  • plinky@hexbear.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    nerd actually space based nuclear uses thermoelectric

    source
  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Or melting salt, or whatever. But yes it’s just making stuff hot.

    source
  • Des@hexbear.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    still waiting for those molten fuel MHD reactors

    source