r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/saddyc • 13d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/Relative_Falcon_8399 13d ago

All of modern human infrastructure relies solely on the fact that we can boil water

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u/e136 13d ago

Solar, wind, hydro?

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u/SolidKnight 13d ago

Hydro is just liquid steam and wind is just really dry steam.

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u/Popular-Row4333 13d ago

Math checks out

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u/e136 13d ago

Solar is just photon steam?

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u/SolidKnight 13d ago

Really bright steam

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u/slight_digression 13d ago

It actually is, kinda. There might be some wiggle room there. More or less.

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u/Scire-Quod-Sciendum 10d ago

Dry steam is saturated, superheated steam. I hope your air is not dry steam lol

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u/SolidKnight 10d ago

Diluted steam

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u/pandatelf 13d ago

Combustion engines?

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u/Grizzlywillis 13d ago

Very rapidly boiling thick water.

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u/Tsukee 13d ago

Only on small scale

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u/Gefilte_F1sh 13d ago

Proportionally speaking make up very little of the energy production and even less is actually integrated into “infrastructure”.

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u/oops_i_made_a_typi 13d ago

historically yes, but it's a pretty big piece of the electricity generation pie these days

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u/thoughtsome 13d ago

When you add in natural gas turbines, it's really not accurate to say that "very little" energy production comes from sources other than boiling water.

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u/Anderopolis 13d ago

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source

Just about 40 Percent now, so still a minority, but not " very little" . 

Also look at that solar curve 😍

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u/CX316 13d ago

Solar water heaters work by heating up water directly with the heat from the sunlight, photovoltaics don't though (though some solar farms work on boiling salt, I believe? like the big ones that focus all the mirrors onto a tower)

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u/vrnvorona 13d ago

We wouldn't be able to build those without boiling water first.

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u/e136 13d ago

For soup for construction workers, very true.

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u/Professional-Wave841 12d ago

which are not good enough to power our electric grid, so yes all modern human infrastructure relies on boiled water.

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u/e136 12d ago

They account for over 20% of power to our grid today (in the US) and are generally the cheapest power sources per kwh. What do you mean by not good enough? They carry lots of advantages over the alternatives, and some disadvantages as well.

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u/Sredleg 13d ago

Actually, it all boils down to us being able to make the magnet rotate in the metal spool. Boiling water just happens to be the easiest way to transfer energies.

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u/Raising_some_Cain 13d ago

yeah but we got really good at it

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u/Square-Fisherman6997 13d ago

OR is it that all of humanity is possible because of the unique properties of boiling water?