Random Thought on Electrical Power Generation

[serscot]

It's 2:47 AM and I'm laying on the floor of my son's room waiting for him to go back to sleep. He tends to wake up in the middle of the night and come trundling into our bedroom and crawls into bed with us. Ah, the joys of Four. But I digress

Comments

[rockstarwookie]

Why do you think that boiling water and using the steam to move turbines is inefficient?
I'm not an expert, but I hadn't thought it was.

Remember that heat is energy. Sources of inefficiency would come from heat losses and friction in the turbines (but apparently, today's steam turbines are extremely efficient.

[serscot]

Oh, I understand that heat is energy. It just seems that Steam Engines, after two centuries, would be antiquated technology.

Correct me if I'm wrong but one of the ways Computers develop and change so quickly is Miniaturization. Can a Steam Engine be miniaturized? Then again I suppose I should ask whether a dynamo can be miniaturized and still produce enough energy to do anything interesting.

Hmmmmm....

[terraprime]

But we have come up with better ways of converting energy. Photovoltaic cells do not require the steam engine component. They create electrical currents directly using the energy of solar rays to mobilize electrons. Wind turbines are also different, though less drastically, as it uses the alternating magnetic field engendered by wind movement to create electrical currents. In concept, it's the same as steam engine, except that it's using wind to drive the blades instead of steam. You may also consider geothermal heat transfer as a new way of transferring energy that does not rely on steam engine principles.

But you know, if I were to believe some of the people on the board, those are not really innovations or such like because our lives are still dominated by the old technology... (yes I'm still bitter about that thread).

[serscot]

TP,

A good point. However without significant increases in the storage capacity of electrical batteries normal commercially available solar cells are no a viable replacement to steam powered turbines. We do have multi-phase photovoltaics but they are really expensive and have the same battery storage limitations as normal photovoltaics. Further, I believe they require rare and expensive elements to produce and make operational hence the cost.

I suppose I'm looking for an energy source that is as efficient and as cost effective as existing steam and water powered turbines.

[terraprime]

The material cost will remain a bit high, given the rarity of the raw material, but the manufacturing cost should come down as demand increases

[fenryng]

Huh. I would have said that it involved corporations losing profits if they did what you said.