Guarantee you they weren't generating a whole lot of power though....
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If you're not sure how the fire works, it seems kind of stupid to build a turbine for it.
If you’re not sure how the fire works, it seems kind of stupid to build a turbine for it.
Leaving the arguments up to this point aside (because I am not agreeing with or supporting @DarkCloud), your comment on its own doesn't make much sense. In general, the beauty of of a steam turbine electrical generator is that you don't have to care how the heat gets generated. You can swap it out with any heat source, from burning fossil fuels, to geothermal, to nuclear, to whatever else and it works just fine as long as the rate of heat output is correctly calibrated for the size of the boiler.
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If you’re not sure how the fire works, it seems kind of stupid to build a turbine for it.
Leaving the arguments up to this point aside (because I am not agreeing with or supporting @DarkCloud), your comment on its own doesn't make much sense. In general, the beauty of of a steam turbine electrical generator is that you don't have to care how the heat gets generated. You can swap it out with any heat source, from burning fossil fuels, to geothermal, to nuclear, to whatever else and it works just fine as long as the rate of heat output is correctly calibrated for the size of the boiler.
That's my point: fusion is just another heat source for making steam, and with these experimental reactors, they can't be sure how much or for how long they will generate heat. Probably not even sure what a good geometry for transferring energy from the reaction mass to the water. You can't build a turbine for a system that's only going to run 20 minutes every three years, and you can't replace that turbine just because the next test will have ten times the output.
I mean, you could, but it would be stupid.
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That's my point: fusion is just another heat source for making steam, and with these experimental reactors, they can't be sure how much or for how long they will generate heat. Probably not even sure what a good geometry for transferring energy from the reaction mass to the water. You can't build a turbine for a system that's only going to run 20 minutes every three years, and you can't replace that turbine just because the next test will have ten times the output.
I mean, you could, but it would be stupid.
Good point. Uncertainty over the magnitude and longevity of the heat source, and therefore how big to make the turbine and whether it would remain in operation long enough to exceed the payback period of its cost, is definitely a valid reason not to bother attaching a steam generator to a thing.
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Guarantee you they weren't generating a whole lot of power though.... And if you can't do that part then what's the point?
It was about 1800 years between the first steam engine and a practical steam engine. I'm sorry that one or two generations is too long for you.
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It was about 1800 years between the first steam engine and a practical steam engine. I'm sorry that one or two generations is too long for you.
TIL. That sucks.
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TIL. That sucks.
Well, there were a lot of fundamental steps that had to be completed first, not least of which was a high pressure vessel. This all took a lot of materials science, advancement in seemingly unrelated fields, etc., etc. Not unlike fusion technology... The difference is we have 2000 years more advancement than they had when they invented the steam engine.
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We also did not build turbines then.
Also, a campfire is not plasma, so you probably shouldn’t be building any turbines either.
Fire is low temperature plasma. A campfire has fire.
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The first planes only flew for a few seconds.
Well, the first ones didn't fly at all, they usually just killed the inventor.
That's basically where we are today with fusion, they don't work at all yet. Luckily it's not killing people.
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Fire is low temperature plasma. A campfire has fire.
Very hot flames can contain enough ions / free electrons to be considered a plasma but a wood campfire the likes of which cavemen built, which is what we are discussing here, do not achieve such temperatures. If cavemen wielded acetylene torches then they might have more experience with plasma.
If you were thinking something simple like “fire is plasma” that is reductive, and the cases where flame is plasma are not the everyday kind. Hence, when I said “a campfire is not plasma” I was being pretty specific. Your reply that ”fire is a low temperature plasma,” as an unqualified blanket statement, is wrong. Go read on it. It’s interesting.
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Very hot flames can contain enough ions / free electrons to be considered a plasma but a wood campfire the likes of which cavemen built, which is what we are discussing here, do not achieve such temperatures. If cavemen wielded acetylene torches then they might have more experience with plasma.
If you were thinking something simple like “fire is plasma” that is reductive, and the cases where flame is plasma are not the everyday kind. Hence, when I said “a campfire is not plasma” I was being pretty specific. Your reply that ”fire is a low temperature plasma,” as an unqualified blanket statement, is wrong. Go read on it. It’s interesting.
We used very hot flame later. Still without full understanding of plasma.
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We used very hot flame later. Still without full understanding of plasma.
I may have to yield this point to you as a demonstrated authority on not understanding plasma.
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