Note: said society is preindustrial and has ample access to flowing water, but not fossil fuels or radioactive deposits. It also has access to mountain hot springs, which I thought could also be used as “batteries” during times when streams freeze. This last point is what set him off.

He also really hates wind turbines.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    … I… think I get what you are going for here, but … steam run off?

    Steam … doesn’t … run off.

    If you mean just… unshunting a sluice, where all the water is exposed to the cold air… its gonna be cooled off significantly after travelling not really far.

    Steam in a fired boiler, that keeps it pressurized, and contained, can spin some kind of basic turbine and do some mechanical work, but… you’d need like a massive network of metal piping, like an entire old school (from our modern pov) steam heating system like many older US universities or older cities have.

    Like… you’d need basically a metal pipeline going down from the (presumably elevated, mountainous) hot spring, headed into your steampunk industrial center, to lessen, but not remove, the amount of some kind of fuel you’d have to burn to get a boiler up to pressure.

    … and that would be further complicated by the fact that mountain springs tend to have a good deal of other minerals and volatile compounds in them… which would likely erode or calcify or otherwise gunk up most metals your pipline would be made of fairly rapidly… and also if it is so cold outside that normal streams and rivers freeze over, well now you gotta deal with seasonal metal expansion and contraction fatique.

    Maybe some kind if extremely finely worked wood with some kind of tar like sealent on the inside, and some kind of insulation on the outside… would work as a wooden version of a pipe?

    Or sealed up masonry of some kind, an aqueduct with a top cover?

    Huge diameter bamboo maybe, lol?

    …

    If on the other hand, you just mean… unshunt a sluice of hotspring water to flow into watermill type machines… that might kind of work, but you would need a lot of hot spring water to replace an… entire river or large stream’s volume of water.

    If you mean the hotspring acts as an emergency resevoir, sure, ok that may actually work… but… that isn’t really a ‘battery’ in the more conventional sense of… an anode and cathode of some kind.

    … Either way, I do think its a neat idea!

    EDIT: i am also kind of confused by exactly how you are saying… this society has steam powered machines… but is also preindustrial.

    … The dawn of the industrial age is generally associated with the invention of high pressure steam engines, and then their subsequent proliferation into many kinds of manufacturing processes that are greatly augmented by these steam powered machines.

    How is your society having a network of steam powered machines, but also preindustrial?

    Do you mean to say it is just at that actual moment of just beginning to industrialize?

    • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      14·
      5 days ago

      Steam … doesn’t … run off.

      I said stream runoff, not steam runoff :P

      If on the other hand, you just mean… unshunt a sluice of hotspring water to flow into watermill type machines… that might kind of work, but you would need a lot of hot spring water to replace an… entire river or large stream’s volume of water.

      If you mean the hotspring acts as an emergency resevoir, sure, ok that may actually work… but… that isn’t really a ‘battery’ in the more conventional sense of… an anode and cathode of some kind.

      This is what I mean, yeah. There are limitations in that there’s only so much water available, but it’s better than nothing, and the reserves can be replenished by spring meltwater.

      Also, a “battery” can more generally refer to any stored reserve of energy that can later be released. In specific, these hot springs would act as a gravity battery.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        11·
        5 days ago

        I said stream runoff, not steam runoff :P

        Oh fuck, I legit need glasses, my bad rofl.

        And yes, gravity battery is a legit term, it just isn’t part of most … colloquial conceptions of a battery.

        But you are correct, it would be an emergency gravity battery.

        I edited in more while you were typing this reply, but it seems you do mean pre-industrial, pre steam boilers.

        In that case, yes, this all checks out, the hot springs could function as an emergency reserve if some simple machines needed to churn…

        Presumably this society would… essentially time their preindustrial mfg activities to when the streams and rivers are flowing naturally, and essentially go into a kind of low activity / holiday break mode during the winter, and rely on a surplus from the warmer seasons.

        • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          10·
          5 days ago

          Presumably this society would… essentially time their preindustrial mfg activities to when the streams and rivers are flowing naturally, and essentially go into a kind of low activity / holiday break mode during the winter, and rely on a surplus from the warmer seasons.

          Got it in one!