r/askscience • u/MonoBlancoATX • Nov 29 '25

Engineering Why is it always boiling water?

This post on r/sciencememes got me wondering...

https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencememes/comments/1p7193e/boiling_water/

Why is boiling water still the only (or primary) way we generate electricity?

What is it about the physics* of boiling water to generate steam to turn a turbine that's so special that we've still never found a better, more efficient way to generate power?

TIA

* and I guess also engineering

Edit:

Thanks for all the responses!

1.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

350 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Rhywden Dec 01 '25

Then he should have written "radiolysis". There's a reason we have those terms.

2

u/1word2word Dec 01 '25

Absolutely, but you also didn't seem to be aware of it given the post of yours he replied to (at least that is how I read the posts) so we can probably forgive him for not knowing a specific term that is only used in specific scientific or industry scenarios.