1407
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 112 points 8 months ago

Why don't we just pipe our water all the way out to the sun and pipe the steam back to earth.

[-] markz@suppo.fi 25 points 8 months ago

How long is that gonna take? A few decades?

-Sam Altman, when he hears about this

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago

Couple of years maybe ... maybe longer

[-] OpenStars@piefed.social 7 points 8 months ago

I know one person who will answer "two weeks".

[-] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

Don't worry, once we set it up we'll have a consistent supply.

[-] shadowwwind@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago

By next year

~ Elom musk

[-] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Oh yeah! I did that for my house. We have free heat and power. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to build the pipeline that far out and it took me many more hours than expected, but, the system toots along just fine.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago

Because it would cool down on the way back.

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 13 points 8 months ago

We just have to pipe it faster

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 8 points 8 months ago

I'm curious if it would even be thermodynamically possible. If we could magically run a pipe that far, would the heat from the water radiate into space before it reached earth to do anything useful?

Someone get XKCD to do a video short on this.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

i imagine filling any decent sized pipes (! plural because heat exchange has to loop) to 1au would use most of the water on earth.

[-] tempest@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago

What if instead of a pipe to return the steam we use a freaking laser beam!

[-] thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

So we generate energy with boiling water next to the sun, and we send the energy back to earth as a laser beam.

Guess how we turn the laser beam back into energy.

[-] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 8 points 8 months ago

What a stupid suggestion...

Let's instead move the earth closer to the sun and boil the oceans directly.......

[-] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 months ago

building a pipe all the way to space would mean the pipe would have to sustain its own weight, which is the same problem as a space elevator. that doesn't work either because there's no material on earth strong enough to support its own weight over that distance.

this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
1407 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

21009 readers
728 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS