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
It doesn't rotate to generate electricity? Must be blasphemy.
Blessed be the holy turbine, we seek guidance in its rotation. Long may it spin and bring forth a bounteous current.
Also fuel cells.
Hey we burn things just for heat too.
Yeah, heat to boil water
We heat homes, smelt ore, many industrial things.
And water
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.
That's all "burn shit".
Most of the biggest advances in technology is just about moving liquids. Rocket science is really just large scale HVAC.
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
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:
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!
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.
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.
Technically, as long as there's more than zero percent humidity I guess wind turbines are still powered by steam. And hydro is essentially steam, too, just the cooler version.
To be fair, the atoms were going to burn anyhow. We just clumped them together to make better use of them.
They can't all be photonic inversion.
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.
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.
Not to mention coal also releases radioactive particles too, but instead of being safely contained they're released into the air you breathe.
But hey, it's invisible, so it's less scary!
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