World of VNC
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https://worldofvnc.net/browse.php?id=177 <- Is that a nuclear plant?!
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@apaulsson It could be any kind of plant with a cooling tower.
Also nothing there looks functional, for all I can tell it's an educational diagram at a museum.
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@blakeyrat said in World of VNC:
@Jarry Environmental control system for a chicken barn.
I don't get what the fire icon in the barn is, though.Fried chicken.
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@apaulsson said in World of VNC:
https://worldofvnc.net/browse.php?id=177 <- Is that a nuclear plant?!
Yes, this is some educational diagram of a nuclear powerplant.
You can see the fissile material as the red lines near (7) and control rods near (4).
Of course, all the other parts, such as the turbines, generator, cooling tower could be just as well in a different kind of powerplant.
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@BaconBits said in World of VNC:
Here's a nice one of a wind turbine monitor in English/Russian:
Если бы это было на русском языке, вы не могли прочитать его.. Judging by the keyboard language it's Croatian.
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@Deadfast I thought Croatian used the Latin alphabet, but the mutually-intelligible Serbian is written with Cyrillic letters?
Edit: Ah, after looking at the associated screenshot I see what you mean: it’s not written in Cyrillic letters so it’s not Russian. What also helps in determining the language, of course, is that the text next to the screenshot says “Country: Croatia” …
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@loopback0 I thought it looked like fuel rods and control rods in the bottom left of that image, but I've been wrong before :)
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@apaulsson said in World of VNC:
I thought it looked like fuel rods and control rods in the bottom left of that image
It is, but it's obviously a teaching tool only.
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@boomzilla I have a feeling I looked at the wrong image or something else equally silly
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@loopback0 Who cares, I didn't notice that either.
The point is, it's just textbook drawing so it's not at all exciting in any way. Unless you're excited about textbooks.
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@boomzilla I still find it fascinating that nuclear power still comes down to "boil a lot of water really fast to make something spin".
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@Lorne-Kates What do you recommend we use instead? Its hard to beat water's combination of:
- Easy availability
- Extremely high specific heat
- Harmless and non-toxic
And it's really hard to beat a steam turbine's efficiency at turning heat into rotational energy. We've been trying for a century and haven't come close.
Nuclear gets hot enough to use molten salt, like certain types of solar heating towers. But you can't run molten salts through your turbines directly (AFAIK), so you still have to transfer that heat.
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@Lorne-Kates said in World of VNC:
@boomzilla I still find it fascinating that nuclear power still comes down to "boil a lot of water really fast to make something spin".
Totally agree.
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@blakeyrat said in World of VNC:
@Lorne-Kates What do you recommend we use instead? Its hard to beat water's combination of:
- Easy availability
- Extremely high specific heat
- Harmless and non-toxic
And it's really hard to beat a steam turbine's efficiency at turning heat into rotational energy. We've been trying for a century and haven't come close.
Nuclear gets hot enough to use molten salt, like certain types of solar heating towers. But you can't run molten salts through your turbines directly (AFAIK), so you still have to transfer that heat.
I'm not saying we should use anything else. I just think it's amazing how simple "nuclear power" is when you get down to it. Seriously, ask around. Ask people "how do nuclear power plants actually make power?" I'm sure the answers you'll get are, with each subsequent answer representing a order of magnitude less of the overall answers:
- I have no fucking clue
- It uses nuclear fuel to make energy
- My explanation (rods heat water to turn a turbine)
- #3, but with more details
Or something completely wrong
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@Lorne-Kates said in World of VNC:
I'm not saying we should use anything else. I just think it's amazing how simple "nuclear power" is when you get down to it.
Nuclear power is pretty mechanically simple. It's only politically complicated.
But I also have to point out, you can explain pretty much everything in a super simplified way, if you were inclined to. A rocket simply burns fuel and oxidizer to go into space. Simple. Designing a Saturn V shouldn't take more than a weekend.
Anyway your number 2 is the best answer. The interesting part (and differentiater) is where the energy comes from; once you have the energy the turbine is just implementation-detail. Coal, gas, solar tower, etc. all use the same turbines.
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@blakeyrat said in World of VNC:
Anyway your number 2 is the best answer. The interesting part (and differentiater) is where the energy comes from; once you have the energy the turbine is just implementation-detail. Coal, gas, solar tower, etc. all use the same turbines.
Yeah, that's the somewhat amazing thing, at least if you've grown up with SF, where the space ships are using some sort of cool way of getting usable energy without resorting to steam power.
But then, combustion engines use some of the same basic principles, except it's the gas heated by the combustion, not heated water.
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@boomzilla said in World of VNC:
where the space ships are using some sort of cool way of getting usable energy without resorting to steam power.
Yeah like in Star Trek where they shoot hydrogen plasma made from anti-matter reactions through the walls?
I'll take well-insulated power cables, thank you very much.
To be fair, though, they somehow manage to have leaks in the plasma conduits like 3 times a season and not be instantly vaporized. Somehow.
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@Lorne-Kates There's a few other ways, such as an RTG (used for deep space probes), but boiling water is the main one as it's pretty easy to handle and generates lots of power. Water's good for all sorts of reasons (e.g., high specific heat capacity, high enthalpy of vaporization) though it's actually quite corrosive so it's not perfect.
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@dkf said in World of VNC:
though it's actually quite corrosive so it's not perfect.
That's why they superheat the steam, they figured that out in like 1850 for locomotives.
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@blakeyrat said in World of VNC:
That's why they superheat the steam
There's still the cold half of the circuit.
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@dkf Yeah what I think they do is run little dogs (chihuahuas etc) through it and they lick the pipes clean of corrosion as they go.
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@blakeyrat wouldn't it be more efficient to use fewer, larger dogs? A couple of Newfoundlands would be able to cover a lot of pipe
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@Jaloopa said in World of VNC:
@blakeyrat wouldn't it be more efficient to use fewer, larger dogs? A couple of Newfoundlands would be able to cover a lot of pipe
I think that's more like a brush - it just gets dirty and smears. The chihuahuas tongue is self cleaning so they're more effective.
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@dcon said in World of VNC:
@Jaloopa said in World of VNC:
@blakeyrat wouldn't it be more efficient to use fewer, larger dogs? A couple of Newfoundlands would be able to cover a lot of pipe
I think that's more like a brush - it just gets dirty and smears. The chihuahuas tongue is self cleaning so they're more effective.
they're also smaller and so more resistant to radiation, at the cost of being less resistant to poisonous substances.
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@accalia Upkeep is cheaper too. And you don't need a garbage bag for cleanup.
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@dcon Chihuahuas require smaller pipes, too.