Ugga is confused. Ugga needs help. Why basically only turbines?
* Nuclear power. Turbines.
* Water power (waterfall, dams and so on). Turbines.
* Wind power. Turbine (This one i accept).
* Wave power. Turbines.
* Coal power. Turbines.
The only one i can think of that doesnt use turbines is solar power. Have we not in our 250+ years of harnessing energy come up with a way of getting said power without using turbines except for solar power? Or is it just that, its our most effective way?
How do we extract energy from our fusion trial chambers? Is it just the heat being funneled to a watertank with a turbine?
RTGs in satellites uses thermocouple. Im guessing solar works in a similar way?
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One reason is we got really good at building big, efficient turbines. So, when a new power generation source comes along, ie nuclear fission, rather than design the whole thing from scratch, you just make it boil water – which is a pretty easy thing to do with a heat source – and thus use existing turbine knowledge from then on.
The “how do we get energy out” of fusion reactors hasn’t really progressed beyond “we could maybe do this”, nobody has built one yet. One idea is to surround the reactor vessel with molten salt, since it’s good at absorbing the neutrons that come out carrying most of the energy, and then having a salt – water heat exchanger to make hot water / steam which you plug into existing steam turbine technology.
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