Nuclear power appears to be a powerful way to make steam that spins a turbine. Same with geothermal, wind, & hydro. Maybe not solar? Isn’t energy lost in the multiple energy conversions (heat, water state, kinetic)? Is it theoretically possible to have a power source that more directly moves electrons through a circuit? If solar is the only one that can, it’s limited in efficiency and where it can be used. What about power generation undersea or on Ganymede or something?
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Yes and no, electricity is generated by a lot of stuff, but the only way that is really useful is moving a magnet over coiled copper.
The easiest way to do that consistently on an industrial scale is by rotating a magnet really fast in a coiled piece of copper.
It turns out, water is also basically the best way to continuously turn something is water, either by having waterwheels in the River or windmills in the wind to harness that power into mills to grind our grain into meal even before we discovered electricity.
But, you are right that industrial energy production isn’t very high efficiency, Coal is about 30-45% efficiency, and similar values for nuclear power in capturing the heat that is radiated. You are also right that photovoltaic is the most efficient at turning energy into electricity with some newer designs hitting as high as 50%, but that’s only one part of the problem, since photovoltaic relies on surface area exposed to the sun the space cost is prohibitive in some areas while negligible in others, and they obviously have the problem of generating most of its power at the time we need the least power and finding ways to store that excess energy so that there is plenty to use at night and early in the morning is one of the open questions in civil engineering. One of the best ways we have to do that is use a pump to store water really high up and then when you need more power to let it fall down and spin a turbine, but the places where Solar is most viable tend to be deserts.
So, while other forms of electricity generation get less electricity per calorie burned than Solar, other forms are more compact and better able to match output to demand curves of when we need them, both of which are actively being worked on.
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