Why do human electricity generation so focused on efficently boiling water and turning a turbine with it. do we have other ways of generating electricity every power plant i know (coal gas nuclear) does the turbine method ? And why is boiling water and turning a turbine with it so great ?
In: Physics
Entropy.
Currently, the grid has no energy storage mechanisms and energy is needed on demand.
The easiest way to consume energy on demand is to convert it from a stored form to an active electrical form. The easiest way to do that is going to be the one that has the largest entropy gradient. This is almost always converting some form of stored energy to heat.
And the most efficient way we’ve found to turn heat into electricity is steam turbines.
If we ever build good smart-grid and energy storage or demand management infrastructure, you’ll probably see fewer steam turbines in our energy generation: wind, hydro, solar.
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