• subtext@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    One could even argue that hydro power is just boiling water, letting it condense, and then letting it spin a turbine

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I’ve never heard of Hydro power boiling water. Usually hydro power is natural or pumped storage.

      You’re just taking water from an upper reservoir and dropping it to a downstream river. Either a naturally-filled reservoir/lake, or a pumped storage reservoir where you use other cheap power during low usage periods to pump that water to a higher reservoir to utilize later. The pump doesn’t heat the water, it just moves it uphill to utilize later, like the Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station in Missouri.

      • hunter@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        They were speaking of the water cycle. It’s the naturally-filled part. Not necessarily boiled, but evaporated.

      • subtext@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        I know that… I was taking liberties to take hydroelectric power to its furthest logical extension by saying that the sun is evaporating (boiling) the water, it goes through the water cycle, it is deposited atop mountains or further upriver, and it then flows back down through the hydroelectric stations.