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Renewable energy just broke a 100-year-old streak | Coal’s century at the top of the world’s power mix is over. (www.vox.com)
submitted 4 months ago by [M] to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] 1 point 4 months ago* (6 children)

That's all just nuclear fission with even more steps.

Are there perhaps only two primary power sources: fission (in stars for now) and fusion (on Earth)?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Other way around. Stars produce energy through nuclear fusion, nuclear reactors produce energy through fission.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    And if we want to be really precise about where energy comes from, it's worth noting that all elements heavier than hydrogen (i.e. all if them) are the result of stellar fusion. Up to iron in the main phase, and anything heavier in supernovae, neutron star mergers, and possibly other extremely violent events. So fission is extracting the stored energy of dead stars.

    Ultimately, it's probably all just residual energy from the Big Bang.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    The energy stored in fissile elements mostly doesn't come from fusion, it comes from gravitational potential energy released when stellar cores collapse. Most supernovae mostly aren't fusion; almost all that energy comes from mass falling down into a neutron star or black hole.

    Fissile elements are still produced through fusion, but this process takes energy from the supernova and stores it, just like fossil fuel is stored sunlight.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Potential energy and tidal are gravitational.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Tidal is really feeding off the momentum of the planet, but yeah, that's not nuclear.

    Potential energy... that's more a storage medium.

    Perhaps we need to add the original energy of the big bang to nuclear. That threw things apart so they could have potential energy, and it gave a lot of matter a lot of momentum which gets topped up occasionally by a nuclear exploding star.

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