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I don’t know why this is constantly criticized as a method of energy capture. Liquids allow for maximum surface area contact, creating more efficient heat transfer from the irradiated rods.
Armchair nuclear physicists should release an improved model before being so critical of the most effective and reliable method of energy generation we currently have.
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.
Hey now, sometimes it's a turbine spun by falling water!
Easy there future man.. One life-changing generation method per century
What about a turbine spun by the convection of evaporation from a large body of water being pulled toward a dry landmass?
That's madness
Behold...the future of green power. No steam or water needed at all!
Also an excellent workout, good for cardio.
Well seeing as any and all cells in our body are powered by something you could very reasonably call an electron/charge turbine I think it's fair to say turbines are really frickin great though!
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.
The heat of vaporization is also a huge negative of using water as you need to condense the water and then reboil it which wastes a bunch of energy
If we were a smarter species, we'd consistently use further heat exchange to use that waste heat for something else, like heating homes. The Blue Lagoon in Iceland uses it to heat a massive outdoor spa.
We do sometimes do that! The problem is the condenser water is usually in the mid 100Fs which by the time you pump that somewhere it cools even more and then most people don’t like living near power plants so the cost of running the pumps and the piping is generally more than the energy saved. Iceland has a lot of geothermal heat that people are much less opposed to living near vs O&G or nuclear
Water desalinization projects sometimes do. Most of them use reverse osmosis because it's less energy intensive, but boiling the water can work if you have something else that produces a lot of waste heat. Also, the water on the cooling side of the desalination path can help warm up the incoming water through a heat exchanger.
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.
There’s plenty of room for advancement in alternative energy for sure. My comment about critics was referring more to the method of capturing and converting irradiated rod heat to electricity. Water vapor is still the standard for a reason. It’s like being critical of a jet engine because it’s basically just a compressor.
I mean it does seem kinda weird that running a heat engine to run a generator is more efficient than using a thermoelectric generator with no mechanical inbetween step.
Thermodyanmics in practice is weird like that. You would think solid state peltiers would be more efficient than a machine. Solid state usually is in any other application. Just this once, no, pelts kinda suck. They've been around for two centuries now and nobody has made a significant breakthrough to improve them.
Diagram please?
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where does hotty water go. If hotty water always hot can we always use the same water
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are there no reactors that convert particle interactions into photons and capture it with photovoltaics?
- Firefly make glow from food
- Solar panel make power from glow
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The problem that I see is that unless that magic semiconductor is 100% efficient, turning all the heat energy into electrical energy, then there's gonna be some left over, and things are gonna get too hot too fast too furious. So you'll need to cool the thing, or part of it, maybe similar to a TEG using the Seebeck or Peltier effect?
I have a few of these kicking around somewhere. They work, just not super efficient, at all, with current technology.
My point is I feel like no matter what you're gonna need extra parts to cool the thing. Water pumps etc etc. Why not just use steam? 🤷♂️
Edit: nice diagram though!