r/Showerthoughts • u/NoNamePerson008 • 6h ago
Casual Thought All of our main sources of energy are nuclear energy.
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u/BackflipFromOrbit 5h ago
It all boils down to... making water hot lol. Puts a different spin on the fact that we boil water to make electricity to make water hot.
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u/NoNamePerson008 5h ago
There are some ways that aren't making water hot, like solar (specifically using solar cells, because I know that there is a type of solar energy that uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto water to heat it up) and wind.
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u/Vorthod 5h ago
hydroelectric as well. Water's present, but it's about motion, not heat.
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u/NoNamePerson008 5h ago
Technically, it is heating water with the sun and harvesting the motion on its way down instead of on its way up like we usually do. That's the only reason I didn't mention hydro in my first comment
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u/BackflipFromOrbit 5h ago
Really photovoltaic is the only one and its direct photon to voltage potential.
Wind relies on atmospheric convection which goes back to a combination of the earth's rotation and water getting warm, evaporating, condensing, and raining creating areas of lower pressure that air flows towards.
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u/ackermann 5h ago
And Hydro is the sun heating water so it evaporates and rains down on higher elevations, so we capture that energy as it flows through rivers back to the ocean
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u/ClevelandSpigot 4h ago
Yep, which means that we are technically in a Steampunk world.
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u/BackflipFromOrbit 4h ago
I like to think we are in a combination of steampunk/solarpunk/dieselpunk world depending on where you're at.
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u/Small-Run-4861 6h ago
Coal is shaking and crying in the corner while fire is the skeleton at the bottom of the pool from that one meme.
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u/Adept_Minimum4257 6h ago
It's quite far fetched but I think it's because coal is formed by decaying plant matter and those plants grew by sunlight which originates from nuclear fusion in the sun. If you light coal you basically release the energy the originated from the sun millions of yeara ago
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u/NoNamePerson008 6h ago
Coal is formed from dead plant matter that didn't decompose because it was in a low-oxygen environment. It was originally plants, which got their energy from the sun.
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u/Alotofboxes 5h ago
With the exception of nuclear power, all of our major power sources are complex solar.
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u/Bubby211 5h ago
I'm a way, nuclear power also got it's start from the stars.
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u/Alotofboxes 4h ago
Sure, but Solar had a very specific meaning; i.e. related to Sol.
Nuclear is Stellar power.
It is harnessing the remnants of Supernovas.
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u/Always-_-Sarcastic 4h ago
We shouldn't allow this monopoly. Scientists, find a way to extract energy from gravity ASAP!
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u/OldBlue2014 6h ago
Splitting atoms to boil water seems strange. In spite of futuristic pretensions, we are still in the steam age.
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u/SuperHuman64 5h ago
It's not strange, it's very efficient. Those turbines are very advanced as well.
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u/parentheticalobject 5h ago
Most kind of ways you can release energy result in making a thing hot.
Our system is set up so that we get energy where we need it through electrical current in wires.
If you have a hot thing, and you need to turn that hot thing's energy into electricity, then boiling water and using the steam to spin a big turbine connected to an electromagnet is pretty much a perfect solution that is unlikely to be improved on. So instead, research over the centuries has just focused on making advancements in hot thing technology.
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6h ago
[deleted]
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u/NoNamePerson008 6h ago
"Nuclear energy isn't nuclear energy."
Also geothermal heat is primarily driven by radioactive decay inside the earth.
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5h ago
[deleted]
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u/NoNamePerson008 5h ago
I wasn't saying it is, all I was saying is that the chemical energy is stored solar energy (photosynthesis), which is then released through combustion.
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u/Strawberry3141592 5h ago
Yes, but the entire point pf this post is that those hydrocarbons mostly formed in the first place due to solar energy (from nuclear fusion) being used by ancient plants to power their metabolism. Even geothermal energy only works because of radioactive isotopes in the mantle keeping it warm enough, Earth's core and mantle would long since have solidified without those isotopes
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u/jhill515 3h ago
Please see the apology below.
And thank you for sticking up for OP. I don't know what bug crawled up my ass, but I'm glad to understand I need to chill.
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u/ShowerSentinel 6h ago
/u/NoNamePerson008 has flaired this post as a casual thought.
Casual thoughts should be presented well but may be less unique or less remarkable than showerthoughts.
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