this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
189 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

66353 readers
4405 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/steam-driven-nuclear-fusion-reactor

"In a global first, Richmond, Canada-headquartered fusion energy company General Fusion achieved the first-ever plasma in a reactor driven by steam."

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It is somewhat bewildering to realize that we have come all this way in technology but somewhere something is always turning water into steam to drive a piston of some sort.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 minutes ago

There's actually a company called Helion which is trying to skip the steam turbine step completely with fusion energy. Although generally speaking you're correct, they're kind of the exception that proves the rule.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (3 children)

All power is steam power, fossil fuels are burned to boil water. Heck nuclear reactors are also just boiling water to create steam.

It's all Steampunk but we grew out of our punk phase :P

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

Solar is (usually) not. Couldn't fit a steam turbine in a calculator.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Solar photovoltaic doesn't involve steam. We can be solarpunk as well!

I guess hydro-power uses steam in the global water cycle so I'll give you that. Radio-Thermal Generators are all solid state, but not much power on earth comes from them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

And thermopiles.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

Wind turbines as well.

Unless you count the humidity in the air.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

Loads of fossil power use gas turbines that do not involve steam :x

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

Was an old joke.

I invented a revolutionary new power generation!

"is it actually new or just steam"

".... steam".

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Murca: let's use frickin lazor beams!

Canada: magnets boil water go brrrrrrrr

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

Murica: also this was never about power, lasers have no chance of ever breaking even, it's just a sneaky way to research nuclear weapons

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

ruzzians use pencils. That's how every NASA joke ends. * correction to a grammatical error, ruzzians is all lower case regardless of word position. Same for putin.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Pencils are problematic in space and NASA didn't spend millions developing it

Sorry had to "ahem actually" your joke :p

[–] [email protected] -3 points 21 hours ago

Nah, the joke is that NASA spent millions on a positive pressure space pen...the ruzzians used a pencil. Lol, don't be trying to fix history that doesn't need fixing. The ruzzians also invaded Ukraine and lost.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

Thats pretty cool. Using steam pistons to help compress the fuel enough for fusion, from which that heat gets used to make different steam to then make electricity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

They have a ton of stuff to figure out still. Seems a longshot, tbh.