Solar is no doubt the coolest.
Hydro and wind are also very neat, going directly from mechanical to electric via generator, without a steam-turbine.
There is also a very cool fusion-category based on dynamic magnetic fields, that basically form a magnetic piston which expands directly due to the release of charged particles via fusion and then captures the energy from that moving electric field by slowing it back down and initiating the next compression.
A fully electric virtual piston engine in some sense, driven my fusion explosions and capturing straight into electricity.
Feels so much more modern than going highly advanced superconducting billion K fusion-reactor to heat to steam to turbine.
Yes! That is super cool tech. If I remember correctly, only about half of the fusion reaction energy was produced as charged particles though. The other half was free neutrons which are notorious for not interacting with the EM field.
I love the idea, it is such a cool direct energy capture method, but it is inherently inefficient.
I’d love to be proved wrong. I did a quick search and couldn’t find the company I’m thinking of, so I’m going off memory.
Wait, how can this possibly not involve a turbine? Maybe there’s a semantics thing I’m missing or we disagree on, but what’s turning the kinetic energy into rotational mechanical energy to spin the generator if not a turbine? Or are you saying the turbine is incorporated, as in a turbine generator?
The way I understood it, the system used electromagnets to create a magnetic containment field to drive the fuel together to create the fusion event. That same magnetic containment field would experience a force from the produced charged particles. That force would produce a current in the electromagnets. That current would be stored in capacitors as a voltage which would be used as the energy source for the next magnetic compression cycle. The excess energy stored in the capacitor after the compression would be ‘generated’ energy.
Yeah, not the right words. I intended to say no steam turbine.
Instead of turning energy into heat into turbinable fluid flow in form of steam, they directly use turbinable fluid flow.
The difference is really the lack of steps up to the turbine.
It’s why photovoltaics are so cool. Direct electricity generation without having to spin magnets in circles like neanderthals.
Solar is no doubt the coolest.
Hydro and wind are also very neat, going directly from mechanical to electric via generator, without a steam-turbine.
There is also a very cool fusion-category based on dynamic magnetic fields, that basically form a magnetic piston which expands directly due to the release of charged particles via fusion and then captures the energy from that moving electric field by slowing it back down and initiating the next compression.
A fully electric virtual piston engine in some sense, driven my fusion explosions and capturing straight into electricity.
Feels so much more modern than going highly advanced superconducting billion K fusion-reactor to heat to steam to turbine.
Yes! That is super cool tech. If I remember correctly, only about half of the fusion reaction energy was produced as charged particles though. The other half was free neutrons which are notorious for not interacting with the EM field.
I love the idea, it is such a cool direct energy capture method, but it is inherently inefficient.
I’d love to be proved wrong. I did a quick search and couldn’t find the company I’m thinking of, so I’m going off memory.
Wait, how can this possibly not involve a turbine? Maybe there’s a semantics thing I’m missing or we disagree on, but what’s turning the kinetic energy into rotational mechanical energy to spin the generator if not a turbine? Or are you saying the turbine is incorporated, as in a turbine generator?
Just so we’re seeing the same picture:
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/hydroelectric-power-how-it-works#overview
The way I understood it, the system used electromagnets to create a magnetic containment field to drive the fuel together to create the fusion event. That same magnetic containment field would experience a force from the produced charged particles. That force would produce a current in the electromagnets. That current would be stored in capacitors as a voltage which would be used as the energy source for the next magnetic compression cycle. The excess energy stored in the capacitor after the compression would be ‘generated’ energy.
Yeah, not the right words. I intended to say no steam turbine.
Instead of turning energy into heat into turbinable fluid flow in form of steam, they directly use turbinable fluid flow.
The difference is really the lack of steps up to the turbine.
Ahh gotcha, thanks for clarifying! And I agree, very cool stuff.
I swear those magnet spinners are so uncivilized.
Semiconductor gang rise up.
Molten Salt Generators are cool Solar power too.
That they are, but they’re still spinning magnets like our honorable ancestors did.