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I don’t know why we don’t do this with internal combustion engines (Gasoline or Diesel) all that heat generated by the motor, wasted, it could be used to generate more electricity…
We actually do. F1 engine’s have something called the MGU-H that recovers exhaust gas energy and turns it into electricity that can be used to recharge the hybrid system: https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/tech-explained-formula-1-mgu-h/
Technically any turbocharger is doing the same thing except it’s hooked up to a compressor for the intake air instead of a generator.
They don’t have that anymore as it was deemed not relevant enough for road use
It’s not quite the same thing, but Porsche has their eTurbo tech in road going cars now: https://www.porsche.com/stories/innovation/porsche-explained-porsche-t-hybrid/
They’re effectively capturing exhaust gas energy straight into a battery, just with a different system.
That’s pretty cool, didn’t know that. Thanks for the link!
There were some cars that used Stirling engine (Czech wiki cuz better picture) instead of internal combustion ones.
Gawd I love this meme.
it is always a steam turbine :)
So we figured out the most efficient way to generate electricity 100 years ago, and you guys just whinge and want something new.
Pssh, you guys are still on gravity-fusion? My ship has magnetically-bottled antihydrogen, which is carefully fed into a specialized reaction vessel that annihilates it with ordinary hydrogen to produce unbelievable amounts of heat…
…which is then used to boil water and force the steam through a turbine.
I just put some saddles on this bacteria that eats photons.
Discworld ftl tech right here
Antiron
I invented a new power generation method!
Amazing, is it actually new, or is it steam again
… it’s steam again.
“It’s a good power generation method, sir”
looks inside
boiling water
> ask if new generator is spooky or wet
> they don’t understand
> show the diagram
> “it’s a good generator mx”
> go inside
> it’s wetI really wanna know what spooky is. lol
spooky action at a distance! like solar panels
You’d think with all the mice and rats used for labratory testing, we’d have power generated by rodents running on wheels.
Still kinda using water to turn a turbine, if you squint really hard.
It’s like how evolution’s perfect form is a crab. Energy’s perfect form is spicy water bois
Its like transportations perfect form is trains
Fun fact: crabs are only the underwater peak of evolution. Land mammals seem to converge into anteaters, and plants into trees.
If mammals want to survive the next 100 million years we need to see the writing on the wall and evolve into crabeaters
I can’t I have a shellfish allergy.
Be a tree.
I mean theres been like 15 things that are dolphin shaped throughout history.
You’re looking in the wrong direction to count and I’m not talking about time.
Points up
most FTL in scifi surpassed the use of fusion to power thier ships and only used a supplemental power, they went with anti-matter, and vacumn energy
Do solar panels operate in this way?
Yes, inside of every solar panel is water and tiny turbines. The sun heats the water, when it turns to steam it spins the turbines to generate electricity.
minas tirith lacks power! sound the turbines!
I must have edited my comment as you were typing yours.
It’s always a relief when someone doesn’t take everything so literally
just like wind turbine right?
You’ll never believe where wind comes from…
Wind turbines use whales and birds, I think it is like in Norse mythology where the wolves Sköll and Hati chase the Sun and moon. But with wind you have whales chasing birds while they are strapped to the blades, this causes them to spin and that generates wind, which fans the flames of fires to boil water and that creates steam.
Depends on the type of solar panel. PV, no. Otherwise, yes.
technically pv panels are also heat engines. this is why they need cooling
Solar, wind, tidal, RTG, DEC fusion are all options without steam
Does hydropower count as cold steam?
Well I guess all wind power is also steam at a very low concentration heated by a fusion reaction.
Hydropower gets its energy from evaporated water rising to the big steam in the sky.
the steam part is in the rest of hydrological cycle
Wind and tidal is still just turbines.
Yeah. One uses the passage of a gas over rotating blades. The other uses water as it flows.
Neither use the passage of gaseous water, so theyre totally different!
/s
We never moved away from windmills basically. Only solar is completely different, besides niche impractical things like piezo crystals
In a way. The energy is, in part, used to cook my food which creates an proton gradient across the inner membrane of my mitochondria which then forces those protons through a turbine.
this is so stupid we should just bioengineer injectable chloroplasts for our skin and power ourselves directly with the sun
(yes i am currently hungry but don’t feel like cooking how can you tell?)
I WISH
Mitochondria + Chloroplast and accompanying UV damage repair systems would be poggers.
Imagine being able to take a nap and snack at the same time. Totally plant coded and root pilled.
humans: getting dunked on by corals and lichens, in this category
Those bastards got it easy ;-;
i wonder if living as a stationary animal or a plant feels similar to playing an RTS game
allocating energy for growth and shit
This is what my autism has been preparing me for.
Sure, imagine if everyone who has a vitamin D deficiency was now also chronically malnourished as well. In order for your plan to work, people have to be willing to go outside and spend time in the sun…
Solar panals provide direct electromotive force. Pretty sure wind and hydro do too. Solar furnaces boil water.
ok i can see the steam turbine powering onboard electrical but explain me how the fuck you’re doing space propulsion and/or warp travel with steam
unless you mean literally just blasting steam like a propellant, Wall-E With the Fire Extinguisher style. in which case you’re gonna run outta steam pretty fast
Ion thrusters are an example of electricity used for space propulsion.
In ion thrusters electricity is used to create a magnetic field that accelerate the propellant particles at very high speed. This way the propellant of used much more efficiently.
Edit: I forgot to mention that it’s not a concept, it’s actively used in a lot of satellites
ooooooh
well that’s pretty neat.
So skimming through the wiki article, it sounds like it it’s still “throw something out the back” to generate thrust, which is largely the same problem as the Wall-E with a fire extinguisher problem another commenter made.
Ion Thrusters sound significantly more efficient (in terms of velocity change vs fuel), but do I have the right idea on that?
Yes, ion thrusters still use conservation of momentum to generate thrust. They aren’t limited by how fast or how hot we can make something explode though, so we can shove way more energy into the stuff they’re throwing out the back. They’re basically tiny coil/railguns, using electricity to move individual ions really fast.
In terms of efficiency, Ion thrusters are 4 to 40 times better than liquid fueled rockets. The draw back is that ion engines make very little thrust for the mass of the engine.
Yes, just like every new electrical generation method is steam, every new method of propulsion in space is throw something at the back as fast as we can.
The exception being Project Orion. The idea behind project Orion is to constantly drop and explode nuclear bombs behind the spaceship at a rate of 1 bomb per second. The explosion of the bomb would then push the spaceship forward.
you use the steam to turn a spacetime-fabric-propeller which can gain traction on vacuum itself and propel the ship. simple stuff.
At some point in the future, it will be trivial to fold spacetime and tunnel through, which needs electricity to charge capacitors and shit because the fuel is energy. You think space travel will be done with gasoline engines?
I sure hope not, the USA has already done enough damage for terrestrial use gasoline 💀
space ships in the future will photosynthesize, that will createa steady supply of breatheable air
even submarines are runing nuclear reactors
With the take off of co2 turbines how is this still a meme?
Super Critical Support for our compressed CO2 turbine comrades.
2026 we put a helicopter on mars and still no power crystals
Lots of mars stuff is RTG powered, so no steam. if it makes you feel better it’s kind of like a power crystal in they metal is crystal…
Look if some mad scientist isn’t fighting some kind of animal heroe over them they don’t count as power crystals
Tell that to He Who Remains.
It’s to boil water again, isn’t it
