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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The turbine is a glorified windmill.
If you have a source of energy that can make heat, you can boil water and spin the glorified windmill with steam.
The alternative is a reciprocating engine, a steam engine, which is bigger for a given power, needs more maintenance, and has the tendency to shake itself apart with vibrations.
On the efficiency, a glorified windmill can extract (by memory) 97% of energy from the steam. It’s glorified for a reason.
Solar panels and thermocouples are other means of making electricity from light and heat respectively. The advantage is that having no moving parts, they are basically maintenance free. Another advantage is that they work well at any scale. On the efficiency, they suck compared to glorified windmills.
There are solar plants that use thousands of mirrors to heat a water container on a tower, and the steam goes to a glorified windmill again, and that’s efficient. It’s just more complex and must be made at a big scale, very big as a plant.
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