Turning heat into mechanical or chemical or electric energy directly is really hard, you know.
It’s funny that you can get more energy from gas by using it to heat water and using a steam turbine to drive whatever. It’s just not always practical.
So my general understanding is that you can use a magnet to create an electrical current. Its like it pushes the electrons, like a paddle pushing water. So they coil a bunch of wire around a magnet and rotate the magnet, which moves the electrons in the wire and that gets you electrical power. But you need something to push that magnet around, so you attach that to a big ass fan and use steam to push the fan. That’s your turbine. Nuclear power is just using a hot rock to make the steam. Hydroelectric power uses a river to push the turbine. Wind power is doing the same thing, just uhhh, with wind.
I’m not really sure how else you’d do it. The energy we can get out of fission is in the form of heat, and steam isn’t as compressible as just gas and it’s easy to make with just heat. Combine that with electromagnetism giving you electricity by spinning some magnets around some coils, and there you go.
It’s probably possible to get some air hot enough and do some fancy convection work to get it to spin a rotor, but that’s going to be really inefficient.
You could also use the heat to make materials glow and put a solar panel nearby, but that’s also going to be pretty inefficient.
Internal combustion engine based generators aren’t fancy steam engines either - however, they have a lot in common still. It’s still just a way to move around the spinny bits of an alternator/generator/dynamo/whatever
There’s one more outlier though which is Electrochemical cell, like galvanic element or voltaic pile
It was used around 1800 as a major electricity source, but I guess it quickly became uneconomical in 1866 or sth when the dynamo was invented.
Edit: wait yes, it actually says this in the second paragraph of the linked article:
The entire 19th-century electrical industry was powered by batteries related to Volta’s (e.g. the Daniell cell and Grove cell) until the advent of the dynamo (the electrical generator) in the 1870s.
But actually that article is pretty thin. I believe it was originally a joke about how many astronauts are from Ohio, so they’d get to space and it would turn out the whole planet was Ohio. It is in fact a reference to real world thing, it’s just a very obscure and absurd reference.
I’ve always found it slightly funny that nuclear power is technically just a fancy steam engine.
I never understood that either. It seems like the steam production is an extra step.
Turning heat into mechanical or chemical or electric energy directly is really hard, you know.
It’s funny that you can get more energy from gas by using it to heat water and using a steam turbine to drive whatever. It’s just not always practical.
It’s pretty much the only pathway to make heat spin a turbine.
Well, efficiently, at least.
You can always heat up a hot air balloon and have it yank a system of pulleys, but you’re gonna lose a lot of energy that way.
So my general understanding is that you can use a magnet to create an electrical current. Its like it pushes the electrons, like a paddle pushing water. So they coil a bunch of wire around a magnet and rotate the magnet, which moves the electrons in the wire and that gets you electrical power. But you need something to push that magnet around, so you attach that to a big ass fan and use steam to push the fan. That’s your turbine. Nuclear power is just using a hot rock to make the steam. Hydroelectric power uses a river to push the turbine. Wind power is doing the same thing, just uhhh, with wind.
Jesus christ this comment deserves a noble prize. Incredibly succinct explanation of something I didn’t get before.
Honestly, fantastic explanation!
I’m not really sure how else you’d do it. The energy we can get out of fission is in the form of heat, and steam isn’t as compressible as just gas and it’s easy to make with just heat. Combine that with electromagnetism giving you electricity by spinning some magnets around some coils, and there you go.
It’s probably possible to get some air hot enough and do some fancy convection work to get it to spin a rotor, but that’s going to be really inefficient.
You could also use the heat to make materials glow and put a solar panel nearby, but that’s also going to be pretty inefficient.
Get beta radiation and then put the electrons directly into the wires.
One by one.
Artisanal, hand wrought electricity.
Almost all power source that generate electricity are fancy steam engines.
Wait, it’s all steam engines?
Hydro, wind, solar, and wave/tide energy capture are not.
The crazy part is photovoltaics are the only power source that doesn’t spin something to make electricity. Truly an outlier.
Not entirely true, there is the thermoelectric generator too. Though it’s not very practical
Except the ones that are. (Concentrated solar power)
…and the fancy steam engine version of solar is probably greener to build that photovoltaics, since it’s basically just a boiler and some mirrors.
Internal combustion engine based generators aren’t fancy steam engines either - however, they have a lot in common still. It’s still just a way to move around the spinny bits of an alternator/generator/dynamo/whatever
There’s one more outlier though which is Electrochemical cell, like galvanic element or voltaic pile
It was used around 1800 as a major electricity source, but I guess it quickly became uneconomical in 1866 or sth when the dynamo was invented.
Edit: wait yes, it actually says this in the second paragraph of the linked article:
Great call! Completely forgot about batteries and potato power sources!
👩🚀🔫👩🚀🔫 always has been
Never got this meme honestly, I should figure it out sometime 🔫🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been
What?!? It was always just a meme?!?
I thought it was a reference I didn’t get because I’m an old.
Always has been 👩🚀🔫👩🚀.
But actually that article is pretty thin. I believe it was originally a joke about how many astronauts are from Ohio, so they’d get to space and it would turn out the whole planet was Ohio. It is in fact a reference to real world thing, it’s just a very obscure and absurd reference.
Photovoltaics have left the chat.
Piezoelectrics have left the chat
Well, wins turbines too
Hydro is the most fancy steam engine since it waits for the water to recondense to make power.
Condensed steam.
Has anyone tried using cold steam yet?
Scientists are twenty years away from cold steam power generation
Wait so does that make wind power more or less fancy than hydro?
Depends on the humidity
Air is a fluid, it’s hydrodynamics all the way down.
Everything is a fluid. Sand is a fluid. Sand and water? Only sometimes.
Edit: this was not on topic, I just got mad at my old physics teacher for a second and channeled 16 year old me, sorry
It’s cool. I get why it’s easy to see the universe as various fluids. We are
I swear Nuclear Reactors were designed by a chemist with a grudge against a physicist and engineer.