Every damn power plant is a glorified steam engine
this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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Except solar. And wind. And hydro.
Some solar is also boiling water
And some of it is boiling salt!
Which then boils water, of course.
But some of it is electrons from photonic impact, no water involved! In the process of energy generation anyway. Statistically and perhaps somewhat ironically, the electrons from that photonic impact may well be used to boil water regardless... Humans just fucking love boiling water.
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Expect for solar, it's all just flowy stuff through spinny stuff: wind, water, steam. GRAAAAAAAAAA
Good ol' mill.
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And wind.
wind is just the effects of premade steam
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We’re living in a steampunk world after all
I'm a steampunk girl
In a steampunk world
It's not a big big thing if you steam me
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Readily available, low boiling point, non corrosive (relatively), and ecologically safe. What more do you want?
Also a ridiculously high heat capacity. It does make sense.
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Hydro isn't. Nor is solar photo voltaic, wind, or tidal, but yeah, nearly everything else is. In a combined-cycle natural gas or diesel plant half of the power generated isn't steam power, but the other half is.
Hydro is liquid steam
aah, but it didn't say steam, it said boiling water.
smaller gas generators based on internal combustion engines don't boil water though, right?
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One of the fusion startups says they can use the plasma B field directly. Basically making the plasma the rotor in an electric generator to induce current in a wire.
I really like this concept, wonder how viable it really is though.
It seems promising, they're acting like they're close. They've been promising concrete deliverables, I think they're supposed to have a working model that can actually capture the energy next year
You never know, but they're called Triton if you want to check them out. They don't share progress often, but when they do it seems pretty candid about their progress
Please don't let it be another Theranos, please don't let it be another Theranos 🙏
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Why don't we just pipe our water all the way out to the sun and pipe the steam back to earth.
That's silly.
Clouds would knock the pipes down.
I was thinking you could put giant fans on it to blow the clouds away, but then the moon would also knock it down once you got up that high.
What if… hear me out… we pipe straight up into space, and then use a 90° bend to angle the remaining pipe to the sun. Shouldn’t Be too difficult, but I bet those plumbers would charge an expensive ass trip fee.
~We’ll need a shit ton of that purple PVC glue though.~
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How long is that gonna take? A few decades?
-Sam Altman, when he hears about this
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I wonder if nuclear would get more traction If it was pitched as enhanced steam power instead
"It's a blockchain of an highly enhanced hydrogen process. Thanks to its AI quantum mechanism it manages to increase the energy output by a ton."
Just tell that to investors and they'll gobble it up. /s
I wonder how fast we could get a steam train to go if we stuck a suitably shaped non-critical amount of plutonium in the firebox.
And replace the pistons with a turbine...
And replace the locomotive with a Delorean.
As fast as it will roll down a hill. A non-critical mass of plutonium isn't going to produce any significant heat for the boiler.
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Reminds me of one of my favorite photos, a steam engine being delivered by steam engine!
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Just pipe the electroplasma directly into the workstations. Sure, sometimes this results in dangerous overloads during adverse conditions, but that's what the Cordry rocks are for.
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Well, you can apparently also use supercritical carbon dioxide.
That might be fun.
But you're basically still boiling something to make it spin a magnet.
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Low key this is a great way to convince people to switch away from fossil fuels.
Most people seemingly don't know that coal/gas stations work by essentially boiling water. Most are horrified at how trashy and underdeveloped the concept is compared to high tech alternatives like solar, wind, or hydro.
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Hey now, we could also use this technology breakthrough to move water from a low elevation to a higher one.
Now here’s an idea - we boil the water to turn turbines, and then have the steam collect and pool in an upper chamber before running through another turbine into the first boiling chamber below?
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Dihydrogen monoxide is potent greenhouse gas that has caused many deaths, and we should stop using it to generate power.
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