Collapse

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This is the place for discussing the potential collapse of modern civilization and the environment.

Collapse, in this context, refers to the significant loss of an established level or complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaotically, and be willing or unwilling. It does not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular, global event. Although, the longer the duration, the more it resembles a ‘decline’ instead of collapse.

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Collapse Will Look Nothing Like in the Movies (thehonestsorcerer.substack.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yep, even nuclear reactors use some form of steam engine to generate electricity out of the heat they produce. It's remarkably effective.

But of note to OP is that steam engines aren't necessarily unsustainable. The heat to produce motion that generates electrical current can be generated by renewable means. Molten salt solar basically does that, for example, and it fits most definitions of "sustainable".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What types of electric generation that aren’t heat related? I can think of wind and solar, and hydro? But nuclear and fossil fuels are steam, aren’t they?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

You answered your own question - correct on all counts! 😊 There are really very few physical principles to base power generation technology off to begin with; it's all going to come down to either inducing a current in a conductor by spinning a magnetic field (molten salt solar, nuclear, fossil fuels, hydro, wind, and anything else involving a turbine at any point all operate on this principle), or inducing a current by futzing with quantum mechanics (photovoltaic cells alone operate off this principle, as far as I understand such things - and I understand just enough to know I understand nothing at all).