McKittyNuts
24154
674
9
Sep 4, 2026 12:44 AM
McKittyNuts
24154
674
9
ThotCriminal666
Technically, it is the kettle, the stove, and the energy required to power the stove all in one!
QuartzPoker
"The world's most famous kettle, reactor number four at Chernobyl, finally boiled over in April of 1986 - just three years before the release of the unrelated Belgian techno anthem 'Pump Up The Jam.'"
Bowtie8bit
Well, if you find a better way to spin a magnet, you let us know. Until then: steam it is.
trondason1
There's been advancements in both supercritical CO2 engines, and in fusion energy creating electricity directly from magnetic flux.
FellaWithUmbrella
Anyway here’s urelated Belgian techno anthem Pump Up The Jam.
FuzzyX
With its secret activist message to jam up the pumps!
agonarch
This is one of my favorite ways of padding runtime. Show 2 minutes too long? Deal with it- cut or shift some ads. Show 2 minutes too short? Anyway here's unrelated belgian techno anthem: Pump up the Jam
mcc1ane
VosperOfAntarctica
Hot rock -> water boily -> spinny spinny -> sparky sparky
cousteau
turbine goes brrrrr
Cosmicfisherman
CUNK!!!
Unclescam
Boiling water to spin some magnets around some wire...
EggFooYung
Nuclear power is just using magic rocks to boil water.
Raventhief
Water is the basis for all life on earth.
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
*Aliens land on Earth* water everywhere, species is made of water, everything they consume relies on water, water boilers everywhere. *aliens leave*
Gargwill
Deathworld.
BenjyX55
Less so when it's boiling.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
boiling water for coffee is the basis for some life on Earth
ActionJohnnie
It’s great for living things because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to heat and cool.
HelloToe
TsubakiTragic
an oft disregarded factor in determining if higher life forms will continue to exist on this planet in the not too distant future.
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
Well, photovoltaics don't work that way, and their efficiency is improving steadily
cousteau
Funny that almost every form of electricity production involves something spinning, except solar… and even then, not EVERY type of solar.
Noahbalboa82
Hey, there are people working on supercritical CO2 gas turbine. Boil CO2 instead of water.
LutraLazuli
Same thing gonna happen when we have viable fusion, even anti-matter or even other advanced power generation tech
cousteau
In the far future:
"I have made a new invention, the Electron Pusher 3000. It works by directly moving electrons using science magic!"
"Oh, so you're gonna push electrons through a…"
"Tube with water, yeah. The tube will heat the water, and then I use a turbine to collect the-"
"Bro."
Cranbananarama
Funny, but true. Wood, coal, gas, highly radioactive material? It's all for boiling water and maybe spinning a machine. Wildest thing.
cousteau
Well, gas can be used directly to spin a thing, no need to boil anything. Just put a turbine and the burning gas will spin it.
The only issue with gas turbines is that the output gases are very hot, so you're wasting a lot of heat.
Which you can partially recover by using it to boil w
theskepticinme
High pressure steam is great at spinning a fan attached to a magnet inside a copper coil
theskepticinme
And controlled fission reactions are great at making heat that turns water into high pressure steam
duktayp
But why is there graphite on the ground
ImLurkingOnImgur
Sorry, I dropped my pencil.
moebiusstrip
it's not 3 roentgen... its 15000
PushPullMagnet
PedanticAsshat
I get that reference
RicheTheBuddha
You also get lukemia
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
And explosive cell death
Foodstamp001
CheeseB0t
Impossible
backrideup9
That's just concrete. Don't worry about it.
powerrangerpl
Not great, not terrible.
trumpypumpyinyourrumpy
You are mistaken comrade. I don't believe you. Go and look with your own eyes then report back
AgamemnonsMemes
"here, i brought some back, is this graphite or not?"
jonhamsandwich11
CallMeOldFashionedBut
Snooj
Good news! There isn't.
Gargwill
You didn't see graphite on the ground because it ISNT THERE!
PubMed12927120suckssobad
PUT THAT DOWN!
pyr0max
What about solar panels?
Camelspotting
Got their PhD
ayers231
Easy, we use the power they produce to heat electrical heating elements so we can boil water and turn it into energy... /s
TanithRosenbaum
You can use them to run your tea kettle :)
nikinnorway12
Leaf with cybernetic upgrades
RenaissanceFaireMan
Wind turbines.
eion85
Depends on the type of solar panels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy
pyr0max
OK, sorry: "How about a panel of photovoltaic cells?"
eion85
Well there you have me, comrade.
pyr0max
Yay! I won an internet! Now I can go to bed happy :-)
Morg729
Theoretically, a solar panel could convert some of the radiation coming off a nuclear pile to electricity, just not efficiently. Maybe thicker voltaic cells like the detectors in particle colliders could absorb and convert more radiation at a wider range
PubMed12927120suckssobad
You can design photovoltaics that are specific for xrays. Not that hard, even.
This is part of the plan for LPP Fusion's system
DustInComp
Photovoltaic is the singular exception among power generators. Eveything else is running hot water or combustion gases through a turbine
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
tidal, wave (not the same), wind, hydro are all in use
more niche ones include osmotic pressure, piezoelectric, fuel cells
pyr0max
Like cold air Wind turbines?
Type17
Don’t forget hydro-power
j6er39rte94
Thermodynamic efficiency (conversion of thermal energy to electrical energy) of solar panels are ~85% vs ~35% for typical gas turbine and steam turbine power plants. Problem is thermal energy you start with from solar radiation is soooo small compared the starting thermal energy of burning shit (or fissioning shit).
j6er39rte94
For a given volume, I mean.
khora
“Solar” panels for heat would revolutionize everything.
WhyWouldIUseMyRealNick
That is an old invention and it hasn't revolutionized everything. Nonetheless, it is still a good one and in many cases more efficient than installing regular solar panels.
khora
If it was working good enough you would use it to cool fridges, homes, and datacenters.
Sageypie
"So these dilithium crystals allow you to not only travel at warp speeds, but provide enough power to create matter, and power the entirety of this star ship? These things must really be something. How does it all work?"
"Oh, yeah. Well the crystals get really hot when a small amount if power are supplied to them, so we use them to turn a compressed tube of water into a highly condensed steam..."
cousteau
Lol, reminds me of a comic book I read where some superadvanced shapeshifting aliens attempted to invade Earth and were eventually captured and forced to reveal how their space travel technology worked for their spaceship, and it turned out to be coal-powered.
TheUnstoppableWampas
we are finally in the starting stages of super boiling CO2.
fbutaric
Steampunk for the win
Kazpur81S
Ooooh there is so much more my friend says
cousteau
Yes, there's a lot of knowledge and sophisticated calculations and design into building something that, ultimately, is a giant nuclear-powered kettle that spins a turbine.
NKato
There are two kinds of solar power, though. The capacitive solar panel - the one we all know about. Then there's the one that's known to instantly turn birds into rotisserie chicken when they pass through. The latter is basically a solar plant that also boils water to turn turbines, and these are generally considered too expensive and inefficient.
BishlamekGurpgork
What's going on? She's supposed to be ridiculous and senseless. But this is 100% God's honest truth. Nothing generates power quite as well and economically as boiling water does, and energy production keeps coming back to it again and again.
makesense
Can say the same about wind pushing a wheel around and the sun heating something up. We've just managed to collect it better.
cousteau
Hexidimentional
its an incompressible liquid that likes to turn into a gas and a pretty convenient temperature, makes energy conversion easy
LiberalViking
And it's cheap.
Sebastopol140
Aren't liquids in general incompressible? Now I don't remember.
OnlyWantToSayOneThing
Supercritical fluid is a grey area but also: liquids are compressable. Sound waves through water specifically rely on micro compression. Its just it takes like 65,000psi to compress water in a % that is measurable. Kinda like how using Pi to 3.1415 compared to 3.14159 to calculate the size of the visible universe only changes by 1 hydrogen atom or something. Its on par with quantum physics with: you don't need to worry about it.
SupernaturalReactions
I tried convincing my local council to switch fluids for power generation, however all they did was ask me inane questions like "Why Blood?"; "Why is it in buckets?"; & "Whose blood is it?!"
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1M2pmYTJibDc3bDV3bjczMXVxdGIyczdwdmMxcmJldTl5NTN0M2UwMiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/VgedGEGu68aZO/200w.webp
Jezzz
cool movie about compressing steam
Sebastopol140
Ok I googled, liquids are almost incompressible... not just water.
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
I mean... they are compressible just takes a lot of energy and usually very little. The ocean floor water is like 1% denser than the surface. Its incredibly difficult but ultimately doable.
Hexidimentional
its the second part that makes water fantastic, that it changes phase to steam at a convenient temperature, and when it becomes steam its not spicy about it.
softsuit
H2O
invisiblemaniac
It's just so damn handy for converting to mechanical energy. It's tough to get away from.
spookyu
Hah steam go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Vebrandsson
There's also the fact that there aren't a lot of other great ways to convert potential energy in the energy sources we have into electricity at scale.
ShowUsTheMemesAndNoOneGetsHurt
...not since they killed Nikola Tesla
cousteau
Yeah I mean, heat is like the shittiest form of energy. Every fancy form of energy that has "losses" eventually generates heat. It's the garbage bin of energies. It's amazing enough that we know ONE way to harvest that energy; of course we're gonna use it on anything that produces heat.
astrangehop
There's two ways actually.
cousteau
Yeah but the second way sucks ass and is only used in like space probes and the like where turbines aren't feasible.
astrangehop
😆 Fair! Weather stations too.
MosquitoHawker
Fact. Almost nothing carries, transfers or distributes thermal energy like water. Trust me, if there was something better, they’d use it already.
I don’t say that to be snarky. Literally water carries our civilization.
Nuclear? Still steam. Oil? Steam. We find new ways to boil water. That’s it.
DOcelot1
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1bnhpdXJjNzJtNW5sMWR0NTU4OHY5bXhka2VrcGp5YXVtZ25jbjZnZiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/140BQZMYDNbN5K/200w.webp
somerandomusernamething
Steam and magnets. It's all steam and magnets. Except solar. That's some sort of photosynthesis witchcraft.
ABakersLifeIsPain
Word. Still steam
ChiLLeCheeze
Best digital store front? Still Steam
Maviyakuku
Geothermal, still steam.
MosquitoHawker
This and the other comment on Hydroelectric made me laugh. Well done.
DavidBrooker
You can carry, transfer or distribute thermal energy just fine with plenty of materials. What water has going for it is that it is also extremely cheap, significantly safer than many other materials, and only moderately damaging to equipment. Nothing else is so effective *and also" often priced under $1 per ton.
MosquitoHawker
Water vaporizes at a relatively low point, expands and cools at weird places (steam and frozen) is safe, plentiful and readily available.
I’m not being a jerk, just asking: what other substance even comes close? It’s incompressible, and transfers heat at levels few substances do, and it’s readily available and non-toxic. I’m no Einstein but I cannot think of another substance on Earth that satisfies these needs.
HurricaneShade
You want Fresh drinking water? Boil salt water
brownribbon
Hydroelectric? Believe it or not, water.
MosquitoHawker
This and the other comment on Geothermal made me laugh. Well done.
Cthulhu2121
Water and iron are my two favorite things. Water keeps us alive and gives us electricity. Iron kills stars and is how we get everything further down on the periodic table. The fact that iron kills stars is my favorite thing
Feralkyn
I need some elaboration on "iron kills stars" because a. I'm too lazy to look it up but b. you sound passionate and I want your take
Cthulhu2121
Iron is the final element in the natural fusion chain. Stars can't really fuse two iron atoms to get something heavier. Even the biggest, hottest stars can't do it. You can't throw iron at a star to kill it, but when a star starts producing mostly iron as a product of fusion, that's the end. Gravity starts winning and the star dies. You get a dwarf, a neutron star, a supernova, or a black hole in the end. And to get elements heavier than iron, you need the cataclysm that is a supernova.
Cthulhu2121
Stars are really neat. The first time we were able to do what they do constantly, it was in a bomb. We used a small fission explosion and relied on the fact that the speed of light is faster than the speed of the expanding pressure wave to focus X rays onto a hydrogen target to get hydrogen to fuse into helium for just microseconds. Stars just use gravity to cause fusion reactions for hundreds of millions to billions of years.
CeterumCenseo
Short answer: Iron is the lightest element that doesn't produce net positive energy when its nuclei are fused. Once a star starts to fuse iron (because it doens't have lighter elements left), it starts dieing, since it won't be able to keep the fusion processes running.
Cthulhu2121
Stars also can't fuse iron into heavier elements outside of supernova
Nuclearun
Stars are actually fae. Cold iron hurts them.
But seriously, the other answer is correct.
draqsko
"Stars are actually fae."
So https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(Gaiman_novel) is a true story then?
NothingPrince
Wind and solar would like a word
repostpoliceunit1
Somw large scale solar farms also boil water by directing large amounts of sunlight at a central heating tower
BeardicPerformance
They can have a word if they like but hydro is the only power source that competes with boiling water for energy conversion efficiency. Wind and solar are great but they’re not nearly as efficient as boiling water.
EmperorCartagia
They don't have nearly the efficiency. A solar panel operating at a 99% conversion rate would still take several hours to generate the same energy steam powered generator can in minutes.
NothingPrince
Sentences that are bullshit. Depends on how big the panel is. You put one on ever roof top and a battery for every building.
EmperorCartagia
Yeah I was thinking of the standard 5x5 solar panel you'll see in rows for solar collection.
What I'm saying is that the reason so many things opt for fossil fuels is that fossil fuels generate energy (elective or kinetic) fast and in large quantities compared to solar of similar size.
You can carry a small gas generator in a passenger seat and it'll run rain or shine, equivilent solar needs a billboard sized panel and perfect weather.
I'm not anti-solar, just realistic.
Aranon1183
My only issue with nuclear is us still not having a proper way to eradicate the waste. All we can do is store it in those pools.
trondason1
I feel too much focus is put on that, given we also don't have a proper way to eradicate the waste from Fossil Fuel power plants. And the quantity of waste is many many MANY orders of magnitude smaller. We're not gonna run out of places to store it, given it doesn't take up much more room than the original radioactive material did.
Aranon1183
That is a valid point
kazeshi
those pools are not storage, those are where recently used rods (and other waste) goes for a while to chill the fuck out after being used. it will stay there for months, years, or even decades in some cases.
once its calmed down to the point where handling it isnt as dangerous it will get sealed up in dry storage in an underground facility of some sort.
that being said, we can re-use most of the fuel if we wanted to, and the amount of waste is very small in comparison and overall really.
Aranon1183
I'm grateful you corrected me, but you still agreed with me, somewhat, on the storage aspect. Lol
kazeshi
oh i absolutely agree storage is a problem. imo, its a relatively small problem (in the sense of both physical space and overall danger) for all the benefits fission offers us in a diversified grid with the goal of dropping fossil fuels asap.
but being a relatively small problem doesnt make it not a real problem or something to consider carefully. especially when governments are not working very hard to solve the problem vs just kicking the can down the road again and again.
cousteau
Mine is fuel availability. It's one of the biggest problems with fossil fuels and it is also a thing with nuclear. If only a few countries can produce nuclear fuel, that'll cause wars and all sorts of political bs if we rely on it.
Aranon1183
And, unlike petrol, if one of those gets hit by a missile in a strike, it'll be far more devastating!
trondason1
So we'd be going the same stuff we're doing now, but with less pollution and what not.
cousteau
Yeah, all in all it's a win in any case, compared with fossil fuels. But it's still a problem you don't get as much with renewables (only when manufacturing the thing perhaps), so from that point of view, the winner is renewables.
I mean, if we were just comparing nuclear with fossil fuels, how is pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and creating a layer of doom over Earth any better than just burying the thing where it can't harm anyone?
kazeshi
i wont live long enough, but im curious to see how accessible fissile materials end up being in space. its still gonna be limited of course, and dominated by rich countries, but as launch costs come down and lunar manufacturing increases, bulk material transport from space to earth will start to become a thing.
might be a game changer for a lot of industries, and countries who didnt win the geology lotto.
cousteau
Maybe by then we'll already have fusion? I've heard that we're just like 30 years away from fusion :P
ShowUsTheMemesAndNoOneGetsHurt
can't find Water in space
Camelspotting
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1cXU1bWd3bHgwZHE2OHNuZjYycXdsajlhd3k5ZXltd3hpYmxtOG92MCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/9SJazLPHLS8roFZMwZ/200w.webp
PedanticAsshat
Not sure that's accurate. Depends on your choice of scale.
DaveDayDays
1. you can
2. you can bring it
3. you can use radioisotope generation (aka nuclear battery)
4. if you're going in system, you can use solar
ShowUsTheMemesAndNoOneGetsHurt
sure, you can find it from space
but, like sound, it's not in space
DaveDayDays
ice is water, and there's lots of ice in space if you know where to look. unless you're making a joke about how space is defined as emptiness, then my bad, but if you're not making a joke, then water ice asteroids are in space and that's how we would harvest water.
cousteau
That's assuming they were thinking of interstellar space travel or something like that. Honestly I have no idea what they were thinking of. If it was satellites or near-Earth/interplanetary space travel I guess comet harvesting is not really an option. (But that's when you go for the radioisotope thing.)
DaveDayDays
Or closed system.
https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/tdm/space-nuclear-propulsion/
A nuclear electric rocket (more properly nuclear electric propulsion) is a type of spacecraft propulsion system where thermal energy from a nuclear reactor is converted to electrical energy, which is used to drive an ion thruster or other electrical spacecraft propulsion technology.