3 ms·

"this closed-loop system can provide a relatively stable energy production with fluids temperature over 100 C on a 30 year lifespan."

• Animats 5y ago
  That paragraph is a little better, but 100C is not enough for a power plant. No steam, just hot water. Nuclear power plants typically produce 300C steam, and that's thermodyanamicaly inefficient. Naval steam boilers hit the 600C - 800C range.
  • blacksqr 5y ago
    There's no reason to stick with legacy water-based generation technology that was designed on the assumption of plentiful availability of fossil fuels for heating. Fluids with lower boiling points and Stirling engines could be used to increase efficiency. Recall that the Deepwater Horizon incident started when frozen methane at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico was exposed to oil at 200C, the resulting methane gas generated enough power to send a column of water 300 feet in the air.
    • credit_guy 5y ago
      Nothing can exceed the efficiency of the Carnot cycle, which is 1-T_cold/T_hot. If T_cold is the room temperature ~ 300 Kelvin, and T_hot = 100C = 373K then this maximum theoretical efficiency is 1- 300/373 ~ 20%.