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Water and steam just too goddamn convenient. Super high latent heat so it can move a ton of energy with a quick phase change, works at reasonable pressures and temperatures, stays liquid all the time when you want it to so pumps work, and it’s so readily available as to be damn near free. Super cool!
also almost non-corrosive, non-toxic, doesn’t damage ozone layer, zero global warming potential, non-flammable etc (lots of organic rankine cycle fluids fail one or more of these. tradeoff is utilization of lower temperature sources)
zero global warming potential
This one isn’t right. Nobody will complain about you releasing it, but it’s a quite strong global warming gas.
Very strong GWP, but it does this cool thing where it condenses when it hits colder air and falls back to the ground in liquid state, thus removing itself from the atmosphere…
(It’s equivalent GWP is near zero and is estimated to be between 0.0005 and -0.001)
it condenses when it hits colder air and falls back to the ground in liquid state, thus removing itself from the atmosphere
Oh sure … blame it on the rain.
Tell me more about this incredible process. Does it have a name?
If it doesn’t I propose a simple and descriptive “waterfall”.
I prefer the more poetic “God pissing on the monkeys”
What would the white stuff that comes from the sky then be called?
Power station fall-out
precipitation
It’s great for nuclear reactors. Hot rock make turbine go brrr
Nuclear energy is solar too
In the same way that hydrogen, given sufficient time, turns into people
Solar photovoltaic is the only one i can think of that isn’t just a fancy way to make steam
EDIT
ok let’s clarify to say a method that isn’t related to movement of a fluid that spins a turbine. So not windmills (air is a fluid), not hydro, not geothermal, etc.
Piezoelectricity is the only other I can really think of. But it’s not like we are out here smacking crystals with hammers to make power.
I like piezoelectrics and kinetic generators. The only two methods of generating electricity I know of that don’t involve steam other than solar panels.
At least, I think they’re different… Is a standard copper wire+magnet generator pizeoelectric? Or is it simply the operation is similar in that you generate electricity from moving things together? Like the difference between tiny little things in your shirt that generate electricity as you move around vs those flash lights you shake to charge.
“I found a new source of naturally occurring waste heat”
generate energy.
not generate electricity.
generate electricity.
not generate electricity.
generate electricity the other way around.
not generate electricity.
generate electricity.
not generate electricity.
generate electricity the other way around.
not generate electricity…
Edit: I dumbly misread your post (energy/electricity) & thought of this, which I will leave here because it made me smile & that’s a good thing.
That’s why Photovoltaic Cells got the Nobel Prize, imo. The only new way to generate electricity actually put to use AFAIK.
Of course it’s completely inefficient at large scale and they just revert back to mirroring light into a collection tower where steam happens.
Wasn’t the main appeal of the mirror installations that you can store the heat somewhat efficiently? Rooftop solar is cost effective even here in Germany, where darkness and shadows loom around every corner.
it’s both, but i’m not sure if these large solar concentrators (ivanpah or these things in spain) are more efficient than current pv panels
I mean, if they’re dramatically cheaper, they don’t have to be efficient.
That being said, solar cells get around 20% efficiency, steam generators maybe 50% on a good day, subtract the reflection, collection and storage inefficiencies and you might get roughly in the same ballpark as solar cells.
Non-tracking solar panels are closer to 12% actual efficiency, 20% would be a theoretical efficiency. I only mention this because you used an actual efficiency estimate for the steam generator but not the solar panel.
These numbers change every year, but: solar panels on roofs don’t track so they’d be lucky to get 20%, average closer to 12%, efficiency and slowly degrade over a few years. Sun tracking panels can reach a maximum of around 40%, theoretically, but on average more like 20%-30%. You have to subtract the negative impact of creating and assembling the materials from it’s lifetime effectiveness, in Germany I believe Hydrogen Steel exists which is much greener than other types of smelting, or otherwise Aluminum is the higher grade material used for such things, and Photovoltaic Panels have a very specialized Glass in most cases that has to be exceptionally clear and strong. If the capacitance of the system is not enough to hold the produced power then an electrical failure will occur, so you must also include large commercial and industrial batteries.
Meanwhile, a Heliostat (a Collection Tower and Mirror Array) out in the desert has a theoretical efficiency just below 70%. Furthermore, if the capacity of the grid fills up then the array can be disable by adjusting the mirrors and excess power can be stored for extremely long periods of time by utilizing molten salt beneath the tower.
These efficiency numbers refer to how much of the heat energy from full spectrum light hitting the array is converted into electricity. Home panels are nice because you can put them on your home
Yeah, but PV is dirt cheap nowadays. Also
degrade over a few years.
If by “few” you mean like 30-50 then sure, they degrade. But it certainly beats anything with a spinning turbine. Or anything with moving parts really. PV is purely solid state physics, you can’t get more longevity than that.
If the capacitance of the system is not enough to hold the produced power then an electrical failure will occur, so you must also include large commercial and industrial batteries
That’s not true. You can also simply turn PV off. The inverters only run when they sense 50 Hz on their output terminals, it’s easy to have them turn off when it’s 50.2 instead. Basically all big powerplants follow that rule already, ordered by things like shutoff time etc.
a Heliostat (a Collection Tower and Mirror Array) out in the desert
Funny that you specified in the desert. The appeal of PV is not only that it’s cheap and easy, it also scales down to small investments and local power generation. If base load actually becomes a problem concentrated solar power will be relevant. But for now, slapping a few solar panels on your roof just makes sense.
lmao your consumer grade photovoltaic panels will not last 50 years.
The solar panels I just bought have a manufacturer warranty for 87% power output after 30 years.
That’s much more realistic, I like that.
Is it that they’re inefficient or harder to maintain?
Yes. Heliostat’s max efficiency estimates are like 70%, sun tracking panels 40%, static panels 20%.
20% for static panels is fine though because they are spamable. They are cheap and you can just put them on roofs and parking lots.
Nobody was arguing anything otherwise, I was just answering questions about why we swap back to steam power for largescale. If you’re powering some LEDs and a Toaster then yeah it’s fine, if you’re powering 10,000 then heliostat time.
There’s also wind. But that just skips the steam
There is an argument to be made that the wind power is technically steam power, given the moist gaseous fluid turning a turbine, but that’s silly.
