Microblog Memes

I'd not that it's criticized, it's just kinda funny that everything comes back to steam engines

I don't think it's a criticism? It's more about highlighting the slight absurdity of super-high tech power generation still using the same method that has been used since the very start of electricity generation. A turbine spun by evaporated water.

Also, water is an amazing coolant. At the molecular level its hydrogen bonding contributes to a bulk property called heat capacity that ends up much higher than most other substances, meaning it can soak up a ton of energy per unit volume (and later release that energy, e.g. into a turbine). And there's even more of that heat capacity in the phase transition from liquid to steam and back. It's crazy good.

It's also super cheap and abundant. The main reason water isn't the coolant for nearly everything is that it can be corrosive. Also steam can be quite dangerous due to all that energy it carries.

Not only that, but we're harnessing the humble yet awesome power of phase-changing matter. The same phenomenon breaks mountains down to rubble, constantly chews apart our infrastructure, and keeps our homes and food cool. It makes a lot of sense to use that same phenomenon to do work.

Armchair nuclear physicists should release an improved model before being so critical

They would, but there are limited options for directly generating electricity. Outside of manipulating magnetic fields with kinetic motion, all we have are betavoltaics, photovoltaics, and thermocouples. And they're all kind of awful in terms of efficiency. Even chlorophyll is awesome at converting air, light, and water, into... sugar, which then has to be oxidized (burned) to be useful.

The nice things about steam is you can get as much water as could want on earth, but something like ammonia which we used as a refrigerant for years would probably work well too and there's planets with ammonia rich atmospheres.

The interesting thing is the cycles are fairly similar at a high level, you just run out in one direction for power and the opposite direction for cooling.

It's why photovoltaics are so cool. Direct electricity generation without having to spin magnets in circles like neanderthals.

You mean like how refrigeration and heat pumps operate?

I put together a thing for a Starfinder session where this one civilization needed a stupid amount of power in order to save their planet from a coming catastrophe. I based it on a laser propulsion method with black holes:

https://www.livescience.com/65005-black-hole-halo-drive-laser.html

In short, you shoot a laser at a black hole, and it whips around and picks up energy (blue shifting it). When it comes back at you, you get more energy than you put into the original beam (the extra coming from the black hole itself, of course). The original proposal was for propulsion, but you should be able to do it for power, as well.

I guess the only thing missing was making it heat up water to turn a turbine.

They're mostly like that ime

Ah yes, liquid steam

How are you generating that energy though? Oh yeah, steam. :panic: