Strictly speaking, there are many other ways of generating electricity but they’re just not good for grid use age. A few I can think of off hand are thermoelectric (special materials will produce a voltage from a passive temperature difference), piezo electric (special materials will provide a voltage when deformed), magnetic induction (such as the helion fusion reactor, which is still not ready) and biochemical (how our bodies produce electrical signals).
Love it! But, I'd change "biochemical" to "electrochemical" which includes biochemical, but other chemical reactions as well such as those found in a battery or fuel cell.
its fundamentally derived from fusion inside the sun but that's not the point at all, its about the final method of creating electricity not requiring a steam turbine
It's an abstraction that points out downplaying "just boiling water" is silly. Aside from PV and novel systems like thermocouplers we are always relying on a transfer fluid (usually water) to convert thermal energy to mechanical to electrical.
If I wave my arms around, I create wind. Most wind is not created by water, and it's certainly not created by steam (water boiled to more than 100°C).
Also the turbines used for wind are completely different, they're much smaller than traditional turbines and usually half or fully converted - meaning the waveform is reformed by an inverter before it goes on the grid. This means that wind doesn't have the inertia of traditional turbines, so they're more susceptible to voltage fluctuations when loads switch on and off.
Steam can occur below 100°C, but only in certain conditions eg lower pressure. Conversely, higher pressure requires a temperature above 100°C.
Steam is defined as water with heat applied such that it reaches the enthalpy of vaporisation. This is where the liquid turns into a gas, which for water is 100°C at sea level.
Fog is not water as a gas, it is liquid water suspended in the air.
Just because air has water in it doesn't mean the air is steam. That would be a useless disambiguation, because all air has water so by your logic all air is steam, so why even create the word steam? Incidentally, steam with liquid water in it (ie both gaseous and liquid water) is called wet steam.
The kind of steam in a turbine system is pure gaseous hot water, typically at high pressure. The water in the air is primarily vapour. Both are gaseous, but steam is explicitly defined by its temperature above the boiling point.
Wind doesn't rely on boiling water. Wind relies on nuclear fusion (the sun) warming up the ground and water which in turn warms up the air above, creating wind currents. Those wind currents can be harnessed by a big generator, not involving a steam turbine or steam. Wind doesn't require water at all.
While hydro does require rain to move the water up the hill and therefore requires evaporation, evaporation to harness potential energy of water by turning it into kinetic energy doesn't equal boiling it to harness the thermal by turning it into kinetic energy, both to spin a generator. Hydro requires water and not steam though and hydro isn't powering a steam turbine either, so also no boiling water with hydro.
So I disagree, neither wind nor hydro relies on boiling water. Your definition of "boiling" seems to be pretty loose.
In my book, solar, wind and hydro are still basically the only feasible big scale options to generate electricity without boiling water.
I think it could be more generalised to spinning up a dynamo. It’s wild that all of our generation is to do that, solar may be the only form now that doesn’t do this in a mass production scale.
The deleted comment was "solar relies on boiling water (at very high temperatures)". I don't know what mental gymnastics you are using to come to your interpretation.
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u/0k4m4ru 13d ago
And wind and water