Can't find it for the life of me... Describing a web comic vs actually posting it always feels like a flop, but...
Aliens abduct a physicist, who doesn't seem to give much of a damn about the abduction but is instead enthused to learn about the alien tech on board, so they give him a tour of the ship. They get to the power reactor and start dropping a bunch of sci-fi jumbo about "We harness dark matter to... (sci-fi Ruth Goldberg machine) ...and finally, we use the heat it generates to boil water and crank a turbine!!"
*Physicist drops to his knees in despair and let's out a dramatic 'noooooo!'
Paraphrasing heavily due to having shit memory. I thought it was a SMBC comic, but... /shrug.
I swear we are going to be travelling to other planets and the biggest issue is going to be how do we stop water leaking into space from our steam turbines
It’s funny (in a sad and sardonic sense) - I pay attention to the energy industry and the outcry over data centers has got me watching these generators closely. If they deliver on their promises, they could represent a great way to deliver on mirror-based solar reactors in areas with limited water resources. (And to recapture and use waste heat from the servers of data centers.)
Society is on the precipice of investing a lot into increasing energy generation for data centers that have to be near the same sorts of resources that people need - fresh water, environs conductive to generating power, stable (enough) climates. But this technology is arriving/set to reach adoption just in time for this boom-bust cycle. All those data centers in populated areas already have a timer ticking for when the shell corps have their rugs pulled.
Unfortunately, there's no way to get energy out of waste heat that won't be spent pushing that heat a little harder. Already a significant amount of energy is spent cooling data centers, any attempts at energy recapture will just make that cooling harder.
The best we can do is something like district heating, because heat pumps can get over 100% effective efficiency.
The energy needed for phase change for supercritical CO2 is substantially lower than steam.
There’s more wiggle room. My understanding is that similar to heat pumps, they can build systems with different optimal temperatures, and even daisy chain them together. They’ll never make a perpetual motion machine, but they can waste less energy.
True, we can optimize the cycles more. Like double expansion piston engines, or that crazy proposal for a hydrid steam-mercury super high pressure power plant.
But that's part of the bootstrapping process. The same way you need power to run the crucibles in a PV factory or to lift the wind turbine part by crane.
They would melt, but we do also have gamma voltaics which can use the gamma radiation from fission and fusion to generate electricity they just have an atrocious efficiency
Doesn't seem particularly efficient to me... The sun burns hundreds of millions of tons of hydrogen every second. The amount of released energy we actually put to use is indistinguishable from zero, not 45%.
Nuclear plants are probably the least efficient, because they required all that fusion energy inside earlier stars to build hydrogen into uranium, and we can only extract a tiny portion of that trapped fusion energy through fission.
It's cheaper now to install panels over the full footprint of a concentrator than to build a concentrator and a small solar panel or any sort of solar thermal generator
They’re actually quite similar to thermoelectric generators. But the potential difference between two semi conductors is created by a heat differential rather than by photon excitation.
Thermoelectric generators have been used on various rovers and deep space probes as well as in remote lighthouses.
You can use molten salt to move and store heat but you don’t put it through a turbine. Molten salt systems run it through a heat exchanger that heats steam or CO2.
Iirc one of the theoretical ways of generating power with fusion is magnetohydrodynamic generators which use the magnetic field created by the plasma to generate an electrical current directly. Still theoretical though...
60 Comments
Murse@slrpnk.net · 92 pts · 125d
Can't find it for the life of me... Describing a web comic vs actually posting it always feels like a flop, but...
Aliens abduct a physicist, who doesn't seem to give much of a damn about the abduction but is instead enthused to learn about the alien tech on board, so they give him a tour of the ship. They get to the power reactor and start dropping a bunch of sci-fi jumbo about "We harness dark matter to... (sci-fi Ruth Goldberg machine) ...and finally, we use the heat it generates to boil water and crank a turbine!!"
*Physicist drops to his knees in despair and let's out a dramatic 'noooooo!'
Paraphrasing heavily due to having shit memory. I thought it was a SMBC comic, but... /shrug.
Everyday0764@lemmy.zip · 22 pts · 125d
you did a good job i remember the comic
tyler@programming.dev · 20 pts · 125d
I was talking with my wife about a comic similar to that not even three hours ago so if you find it let me know cause I want to show her too.
Napster153@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 124d
"And then, the power generated is used to heat water and generate steam!"
"No...."
"That steam is used to turn a wheel!"
"No! NOOOOOOO!!!!!"
"Hey dude, calm down."
-Actual exchange during first contact.
mortemtyrannis@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 125d
I swear we are going to be travelling to other planets and the biggest issue is going to be how do we stop water leaking into space from our steam turbines
expatriado@lemmy.world · 74 pts · 125d
still waiting for someone to demonstrate a more efficient power transfer solution
nomecks@lemmy.wtf · 81 pts · 125d
You're in luck. Supercritical CO2 turbines are a thing now, and they're way more efficient because they don't involve a phase change.
chickenf622@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 125d
Got any sources on that? I would love to learn about some new tech in electricity generation.
silver@das-eck.haus · 45 pts · 125d
One facility opened in China a couple weeks ago. I can't find the article that I read from the other day but this should give you some info
fartographer@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 125d
Morphit@feddit.uk · 10 pts · 125d
A good video on it dropped recently: https://youtube.com/watch?v=M55XzxjmON0
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org · 6 pts · 125d
It’s funny (in a sad and sardonic sense) - I pay attention to the energy industry and the outcry over data centers has got me watching these generators closely. If they deliver on their promises, they could represent a great way to deliver on mirror-based solar reactors in areas with limited water resources. (And to recapture and use waste heat from the servers of data centers.)
Society is on the precipice of investing a lot into increasing energy generation for data centers that have to be near the same sorts of resources that people need - fresh water, environs conductive to generating power, stable (enough) climates. But this technology is arriving/set to reach adoption just in time for this boom-bust cycle. All those data centers in populated areas already have a timer ticking for when the shell corps have their rugs pulled.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 125d
Unfortunately, there's no way to get energy out of waste heat that won't be spent pushing that heat a little harder. Already a significant amount of energy is spent cooling data centers, any attempts at energy recapture will just make that cooling harder.
The best we can do is something like district heating, because heat pumps can get over 100% effective efficiency.
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 125d
The energy needed for phase change for supercritical CO2 is substantially lower than steam.
There’s more wiggle room. My understanding is that similar to heat pumps, they can build systems with different optimal temperatures, and even daisy chain them together. They’ll never make a perpetual motion machine, but they can waste less energy.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 123d
True, we can optimize the cycles more. Like double expansion piston engines, or that crazy proposal for a hydrid steam-mercury super high pressure power plant.
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
At some point you are going to need steam to spin a turbine to generate enough energy to compress the CO2.
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 123d
But that's part of the bootstrapping process. The same way you need power to run the crucibles in a PV factory or to lift the wind turbine part by crane.
nomecks@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 124d
Solar panels? Wind?
FiskFisk33@startrek.website · 22 pts · 125d
Solar cells, technically.
boiling water systems have a thermal efficiency of ~40% Solar cells are closer to 45% efficient
spazzman6156@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 125d
So line a nuclear fusion containment chamber with photovoltaic cells?
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 124d
That's called a "Dyson sphere".
BussyCat@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 125d
They would melt, but we do also have gamma voltaics which can use the gamma radiation from fission and fusion to generate electricity they just have an atrocious efficiency
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · -8 pts · 125d
Doesn't seem particularly efficient to me... The sun burns hundreds of millions of tons of hydrogen every second. The amount of released energy we actually put to use is indistinguishable from zero, not 45%.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 125d
I mean, that's like pointing out that a coal plant isn't very efficient because it doesn't burn all the coal on Earth at once.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website · 12 pts · 125d
If we put it like that, every other energy source on earth begins that way and adds at least one conversion step.
... except for fusion of course.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 124d
Exactly.
Nuclear plants are probably the least efficient, because they required all that fusion energy inside earlier stars to build hydrogen into uranium, and we can only extract a tiny portion of that trapped fusion energy through fission.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 125d
Helion is trying to build a fusion reactor that harvests the energy through electro magnetic induction.
https://youtu.be/HlNfP3iywvI
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 125d
I'll believe it when I see it. They have so many material science challenges ahead of them and aren't very forthcoming with progress.
nightlily@leminal.space · 1 pts · 125d
Feels like putting the cart before the horse there.
pntha@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 125d
fission. aside from the fact physicists didn’t invent either, we’ve yet to boil any water with fusion.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 125d
Give me a concave mirror and I'll change that
grue@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 125d
Best I can do is a convex lens.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 23 pts · 125d
We've boiled tons of water with it, but there have been no functional turbines involved in a ten mile radius.
Flipper@feddit.org · 18 pts · 125d
I've got to disappoint you. We've boiled water with solar to crank a turbine for electricity.
wieson@feddit.org · 17 pts · 125d
But is it closer or further away than 16 km to the nuclear fusion source?
Cort@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 125d
Even wind power still turns a generator, but solar is just completely different than everything else
vodka@feddit.org · 25 pts · 125d
But what if... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
psud@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 124d
It's cheaper now to install panels over the full footprint of a concentrator than to build a concentrator and a small solar panel or any sort of solar thermal generator
vodka@feddit.org · 1 pts · 124d
But then we're not boiling something to spin a turbine, and what's the point in living then
megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 125d
They’re actually quite similar to thermoelectric generators. But the potential difference between two semi conductors is created by a heat differential rather than by photon excitation.
Thermoelectric generators have been used on various rovers and deep space probes as well as in remote lighthouses.
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 125d
Napster153@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 124d
"That's it?! That's the nuclear power? That's just boiling water!"
Ancient meme I had back in the day...
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 22 pts · 125d
* Looks up *
* Ahem *
Nuclear fusion existed well before physicists.
bountygiver@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 125d
And we are harnessing its power WITHOUT boiling water
SethTaylor@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 125d
Man... can you imagine? Someone could shut down the whole power grid just by watching all that water.
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 17 pts · 125d
Didn't China recently use super conducting CO2 instead of water?
BussyCat@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 125d
Supercritical CO2 has been looked at a lot for the Brayton cycle which can get 50% efficiency compared to steam that generally caps out around 34%
The US and china both published studies talking about a brayton turbine but to my knowledge no commercial plants running off of it have been built yet
Chais@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 125d
Supercritical, not superconducting.
Alberat@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 125d
idk but you can also use molten salt
megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 17 pts · 125d
You can use molten salt to move and store heat but you don’t put it through a turbine. Molten salt systems run it through a heat exchanger that heats steam or CO2.
Alberat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 124d
oh thanks i didnt know or forgot
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 125d
https://youtu.be/OC9RI8_QYmw
This is what I think of when I hear molten salt.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 125d
That sounds great.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 8 pts · 125d
physicists looove hot showers! they're the best! so comfy ☺️
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 125d
Mofos just reinvented the steam engine
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 125d
Ok hear me out...
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 123d
Give it a few years and this is how we ride through the post apocalyptic wasteland.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 125d
Iirc one of the theoretical ways of generating power with fusion is magnetohydrodynamic generators which use the magnetic field created by the plasma to generate an electrical current directly. Still theoretical though...
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 126d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M55XzxjmON0&t=
MehBlah@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
The idea that using steam loop to turn a turbine is mind blowing to some.