Eli5: If we had steam powered trains back in the day, why didn’t steam become a common “clean” energy source? Why did it die out?
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>Eli5: If we had steam powered trains back in the day, why didn’t steam become a common “clean” energy source? Why did it die out?
Steam is created by heating up water a lot. Steam engines burned coal for that.
You can heat up the water by other means too! Nearly *every* conventional contemporary power plant uses steam turbines to generate its output. Coal power plants burn coal to provide steam for their turbines, gas power burn gas to provide steam for their turbines, nuclear power plants use the heat generated from nuclear fission to provide steam for their turbines.
It’s steam turbines all the way down. Either way, none of it is *particularly* clean. There’s always something that gets **set on fire** or used up in the process.
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