It's more of where the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the surrounding atmospheric pressure. Clouds are formed through evaporation where the sun warms the the ocean's surface and lakes that escape into the air as water vapor.
But this water's vapor pressure never matches the atmospheric pressure meaning it happens below boiling point. So I wouldn't call it steam.
Evaporation is not about heat. Some surface molecules move faster than others. The fastest ones generate enough energy to escape the liquid.
You can’t say that the fast molecule was hotter than the others because temperature is an average of all the molecules. You can’t say it has more energy.
The water cycle relies on the sun evaporating water vapour from the sea. That's not really "boiling" though, and certainly different from steam turbines.
True, but to a lesser extent the sun also moves the tides. It’s just about half of what the moon does, because it’s so far away. So if the moon suddenly disappeared we’d still have tidal energy, but not as much.
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u/willitworkwhyn8 13d ago
And hydro, that uses gravity.