this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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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."

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (4 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] 35 points 1 month ago (2 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] 9 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

"Couldn't fit a steam turbine in a calculator."

Not with that attitude you can't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Time to invent one xD

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Was an old joke.

I invented a revolutionary new power generation!

"is it actually new or just steam"

".... steam".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month 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] 15 points 1 month 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] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Murca: let's use frickin lazor beams!

Canada: magnets boil water go brrrrrrrr

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month 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] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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] 12 points 1 month 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] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The joke is factually incorrect. The Soviets used pens because graphite and pencil shavings are problematic for delicate equipment in microgravity.

Also the Soviet government has little to no relation to the capitalist oligarchy that currently runs Russia so the comment about Ukraine is irrelevant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Other factually incorrect jokes.... An electron walks into a bar...a Mexican, an American, a Frenchman... Why did the chicken cross the road?.... Why can't tyrannosaurs scratch it's back?...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Arcanum when?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

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