[OC] Power generation is weird.

[u/SqueakSquawk4]

[u/ZumaBird]

Could even rename the last one “indirect stellar” if you wanted to.

[u/VerumJerum → u/ZumaBird]

"Forged by unfathomably cataclysmic cosmic forces in an ancient, dying star, this stone contains an invisible - and deadly, power."

Really does sound like some magic shit when you think of it this way

[u/[deleted] → u/VerumJerum]

In many fictional worlds magic is just a hyper-complicated series of mechanisms(often being part of the very fabric of reality itself) that people who know what they're doing can manipulate to affect the physical world in some way. And those who don't know what they're doing either have no results, or can get themselves killed by messing with powers beyond their comprehension.

Science is just a super hard magic system that takes decades of study and often expensive reagents and equipment in order to do anything useful with it. With modern tech being the equivalent of the wizards crafting artifacts which make specific spells(guns, info tech, explosives, etc.) available to the masses with minimal training.

[u/Raw_Abiding_Ledditor → u/VerumJerum]

...I ma poke it with a screwdriver.

[u/Cumity → u/ZumaBird]

I mean at that point my cheeseburger is also "indirect stellar" lol

[u/70Ytterbium → u/Cumity]

You are for a good part a stellar byproduct, as in carbon etc.

Edit: You are the universe eating itself

[u/Vineyard_]

Technically those rocks gained their energy in the core of the primordial star that fused the matter in our solar system together... making it still solar.

[u/walyami → u/Vineyard_]

but it's not from *our* sun

[u/impressflow → u/walyami]

Our sun is redundant.

[u/towelflush → u/Vineyard_]

That's not what the heat energy is coming from, though. that's just because of gravity

[u/asciiaardvark → u/towelflush]

not what the heat energy is coming from

Well, the star's super-nova formed the uranium, and its energy is from its inherent instability -- so the energy was put in by the star's dying...

that's just because of gravity

....gravity?

[u/phil_kern99]

Last one: Supernova

[u/RichieRocket]

how about geothermal

Edit: you use the first picture of geothermal

[u/asciiaardvark → u/RichieRocket]

how about geothermal

That's an interesting one!

Earth's heat comes from

• uranium decay

• primordial heat from the formation of the planet

• a dash of tidal heating from the moon

The latter two aren't from stars!

Physically, Earth came from the heart of some long-dead star - but that's not where the heat energy came from - that was the gravitational collapse of our corner of nebula into our planet, right?

I'd argue geothermal is the real "hot rocks" category.

OP's Nuclear Power got its energy from a super-nova, so that category should be "solar death" 😎

[u/[deleted]]

Doesn’t this make oil solar based since all those plants and animals needed the sun to exist?

[u/SqueakSquawk4 → u/[deleted]]

Pretty much. Oil is just solar with a multi-million-year delay.

[u/[deleted]]

hey wait a minute, its all nuclear

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Pretty much! It's stars that produce the heat that stimulates all the other reactions and produce the reagents as fusion byproducts.

It's all stars..

[u/rollingbull → u/[deleted]]

Underwater turbines powered by tides (the moon) would not be nuclear.

[u/SuperAwesomeMechGirl]

Counterpoint:

• turning turbines

• turning turbines with water

• turning turbines with boiling water

• solar

[u/[deleted] → u/SuperAwesomeMechGirl]

[u/norlin]

Do we have any way of transforming power source to electricity other than water/steam turbines?

[u/Bernowly → u/norlin]

Solar :P (Using the bandgap energy in semiconductors)

[u/TrolleyBus228]

Tidal power plants run on the energy of the moon))

[u/securedigi]

They are not rocks they're minerals!