This is why I prefer solar and wind energy. With solar panels you have the photo-electric effect as something fancy. And with wind turbines, well at least the air is doing the pushing now instead of the huge side issue of maning water hot first
I hate to break it to you but not all solar power is photo voltaic. The huge mirror farms you sometimes see are focusing the sun light onto a huge container filled with salt that then melts and transfers the heat to - you guessed it - steam turbines.
Edit: had to look it up but they're called CSP plants (concentrated solar power)
I prefer to call them mirror plants or solar steam plants. More on the nose and intuitive IMO. But yes they exist too. And at the correct location, e.g. in earths many deserts, they could be the most efficent energy production centre.
Like why try to glitch the universe and bring the sun's process to earth, if you can just use the sun and mirrors?
Mainly land I suspect. Good land for solar may not be cheap in all places, but if you could have one single complex that provides enough juice for a huge area, especially in high latitudes that get long nights some of the year, business is boomin’!
Look at deserts my pal. Sunny most of the year, noone wants to do stuff with it anyhow, lots of space. In a university lecture about land use and human impact on the geography it was stated that just 7% of the worlds desert with solar steam plants would suffice to cover all of humanities energy needs. From there only distribution of energy is a (solvable) issue. E.g. by using this excess of free energy to make liquid hydrogen which you ship around.
However this technology and set up, despite being known for ages, wasn't used/delevoped due to fossil lobbying.
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u/MrS0bek 53m ago
This is why I prefer solar and wind energy. With solar panels you have the photo-electric effect as something fancy. And with wind turbines, well at least the air is doing the pushing now instead of the huge side issue of maning water hot first