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0 pointsh0l0cube3y ago0 comments

I wonder if TPV could be used instead of a turbine?

https://news.mit.edu/2022/thermal-heat-engine-0413

> Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency — a performance better than that of traditional steam turbines.

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credit_guy3y ago

Unfortunately, it can't. Nuclear reactor cores can obviously get very hot, but for safety reasons they are not allowed to. They work at about 300 degrees Celsius. The linked heat engine has the high efficiency quoted only when the hot element is extremely hot, a few thousand degrees Celsius.

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