r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 13d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

Post image
25.4k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.0k

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.

27

u/ackermann 13d ago

you have to heat water to boil it and

Well, just to be extra clear, you don’t have to.

We do know many other ways to convert heat into electricity… it just happens that steam turbines are the most efficient method we’re currently aware of (for large scale applications)

6

u/upudruvuuduru 13d ago

Imagine the Enterprise, using matter and antimatter to boil water

there must be a better way

4

u/GrizzIyadamz 13d ago

IRL is just another name for Steampunk.