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
We want power for a long time, that means something going round and round and round. That leads to spinning magnets inside coiled wires.
An easy way to get energy out of wood and coal and gas is to burn them, the energy comes out as heat so there needs to be some way to go heat -> spinning.
Water is easily available, cheap, safe at room temperature and when it boils into steam it expands 1000x making a very strong pushing force. Other options are available, any [heat engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine) such as a [Mercury vapour turbine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_vapour_turbine) could work, but Mercury isn’t as cheap, as easily available, or as safe to work with.
Water -> steam -> spinning is a great blend of useful, useable, affordable, and good enough.
> do we have other ways of generating electricity
Tons of them; Pumped storage hydroelectric uses water rushing downhill to spin turbines. Wind turbines use wind blowing on blades. Solar panels use sunlight energy hitting semiconductors. Wave and tidal generators use ocean movement. At smaller sizes, gas and diesel cars drive alternators to charge their batteries, Sterling engines work on any heat source, Peltier effect devices use warmth on semiconductors, people pedaling on bicycles with dynamo lights, electric cars do regenerative braking to turn wheel rotation into electricity.
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