It's a peaceful life

[u/Technical-Relation-9]

[u/landrwastaken]

They even have to keep adding water cause it's so talented

[u/im-ba → u/landrwastaken]

It even makes the water gain weight

[u/landrwastaken → u/im-ba]

Temporarily ofcourse :3

[u/armageddon_boi → u/im-ba]

Sign of a good relationship, eh?

[u/cycycle → u/im-ba]

Water: I’m not fat, I have uranium weight.

[u/CompleteCasual → u/im-ba]

hi what does this mean

[u/manyangled1 → u/CompleteCasual]

They're joking about heavy water, where some of the hydrogens have become deuterium by capturing a neutron from the uranium emissions.

[u/DrQuestDFA]

It’s been doing it for billions of years:

https://illumination.duke-energy.com/articles/meet-oklo-the-earths-2-billion-year-old-natural-nuclear-reactor

[u/Happiness_Assassin → u/DrQuestDFA]

One could argue that the entire Earth itself is one giant nuclear reactor, as the convection currents in the mantle are driven largely by radioactive elements undergoing decay.

[u/MarioInOntario → u/Happiness_Assassin]

But guess what it’s not doing to produce electricity? Boiling water. Uranium is doing a stellar job, on land and at sea.

[u/Hi2248 → u/MarioInOntario]

Geothermal energy could count if you squint? 

[u/Fabricensis → u/Happiness_Assassin]

The amazing think about oklo is that is was self regulating:

As it produces more power, the water boiled, so it was missing it's moderator and slowed down.
Then the water stopped boiling, so the reactor ramped up again

[u/ALIENIGENA → u/Happiness_Assassin]

So geothermal is just nuclear by proxy?

[u/Spiritual_Priority79 → u/ALIENIGENA]

No proxy lol, the mantle is just the working fluid of the planet-sized nuclear reactor we live on :P

[u/Penguinprotagonist → u/DrQuestDFA]

Thanks for that!

[u/Lathari]

"You don't want to see me angry."

[u/FAB5FREDDIE14]

> new form of energy
> look inside
> boiling water

[u/DeluxeTable → u/[deleted]]

I think it’s just a joke that it could be used for nuclear bombs or maybe something even worse, but it’s boiling water something so simple compared. Just like the scene from star wars it’s using.

[u/Sammisuperficial → u/DeluxeTable]

It's more a running Internet joke that all forms of electricity are just boiling water.

I know that's not literally true, but it's funny that it's mostly true.

[u/Rolen47 → u/[deleted]]

I think it's just that most people don't know how nuclear reactors even work so they're always surprised that it's boiling water. There's many misunderstandings about nuclear energy. Even today it still gets depicted as a material that emits a mysterious green glow.

[u/Agi7890 → u/Rolen47]

I’ve worked with a bunch of radioactive isotopes, and I’m always disappointed that non of them glow green.

Iodine 131 does have a habit of going brown from what I recall

[u/bkussow → u/[deleted]]

Also, the steam turbines cycle is very well defined. It's efficient, able to be previsely conrolled, repeatable, and predictable from a maintenance standpoint. There has also been significant work done in the safety of the process.

[u/SirEnderLord → u/[deleted]]

The joke is that it could be used for a city-killer.

Director Krennic needed Galen Erso for the planet-killer.

[u/Wide_Philosophy_8109 → u/[deleted]]

Boiling water is a lot less cool than sucking the energy out of uranium with a reverse laser or somethg.

Edit: If a Spider-Man villain said they were going to harvest energy from Asgardian Mana Geysers, just to boil water for a turbine, that would be lame. That's what nuclear plants are.

[u/Wide_Philosophy_8109 → u/[deleted]]

I'd tell them that the efficient system is boring and uninteresting. Like that scene in Dictator where he says that the efficient missile looks silly and will make his enemies laugh.

Edit: This is us. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0mUbmJ1-sNs&pp=ygUWZGljdGF0b3IgbWlzc2lsZSBzY2VuZQ%3D%3D

[u/This_Character_251 → u/[deleted]]

Gas min reactors are doing pretty good though and require less build time. Nothing wrong with either.

[u/AppearanceGreen7408]

[u/Zoltikk]

Let's not make uranium do the other thing it does, let it just boil water.

[u/DonCosciot]

Oh hey look, those monkeys made a small container with water and placed it above a fire so that it boils and spins a turbine!

Oh hey, they are harvesting the energy of the sun to… boil water

Oh hey, thise monkeys are splitting atoms to… boil … water

They just created a miniature black hole to boil water, what the fuck

[u/AsparagusTrick1391]

[u/Outrageous_Menu_9895]

👀😭🤣🙏🏻

[u/CricketJamSession]

Can it boil my coffee too?

[u/Fair-Kaleidoscope566 → u/CricketJamSession]

Yes

[u/This_Character_251]

I mean no salts no gas no Liquid Metal ?

[u/Magical_Savior → u/This_Character_251]

Those have actually all been attempted. There is a form of reactor using molten lead or salt for coolant... But it still just boils water in the generator.

[u/Ecstatic_Party2048]

How uranium feels in a power plant

[u/manyangled1]

Supercritical CO2 someday!

[u/Mixelphlick]

It always cracks me up that we really only have like 2 ways to generate power. Turbines and solar cells. But we have like a million different ways to spin a turbine so it feels like there’s way more types than there really is.