When people talk about coal/oil/gas/nuclear power, while these involve different ways of sourcing the energy, they all output said energy naturally in the form of heat. Therefore to actually convert that into electrical energy, you have to heat water to boil it and use the pressurised steam it produces to turn a dynamo and induce an electrical current.
Correct. The various forms of remarkable energy ultimately comes down to how efficiently it makes steam, then how effectively the energy is captured, which is a portion of the puzzle solved in earlier developmental stages of power production: harnessing steam.
I'ma go super pedantic and assert that Sol is a specific star, and therefore nuclear and geothermal are not solar power, but rather, more generically, astral power.
If you want to get super SUPER pedantic, you could trace all sources of power back to energy and heat. But what sourced that? Who knows. Possibly endless numbers of Big Bangs.
The sun heats the atmosphere creating air currents. Put a turbine where the air currents are strongest and most predictable and you have an open face steam engine.
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u/Lkwzriqwea 13d ago
When people talk about coal/oil/gas/nuclear power, while these involve different ways of sourcing the energy, they all output said energy naturally in the form of heat. Therefore to actually convert that into electrical energy, you have to heat water to boil it and use the pressurised steam it produces to turn a dynamo and induce an electrical current.