Why cant we use electricity to generate power? A question about perpetual power?

Question

Fossil fuels and nuclear fuel are burnt/used to heat water to generate steam which the turns a turbine that creates power - so why cant we syphon off some of the power generated to heat the water to create the steam thus giving us perpetual clean energy production?

Answer 1

"syphon off some of the power generated to heat the water" burning Fossil fuels and nuclear fuel is the way we syphon the energy held in these fuels. To make it accessible we convert it by processes like the one described in your question.

Answer 2

Try looking at Einsteins theory of relativity, or us northerners who said before him there's nowt for nowt in this world

Answer 3

Perpetual motion machines are impossible.  If you syphon off some of the power generated to heat water you are only going to heat a little bit of water, and end up with less electricity than you used to heat the water in the first place.

Answer 4

It is already being used. Once the fossil fuel and/or nuclear fuel passes the turbine exhaust it is then harnessed using the HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam Generator). The HRSG is a series of tubes that has a lot of demineralized water inside. The water inside the tubes were heated using the exhaust from the turbine then turns into a High pressure steam. The steam is harnessed then sent to the Steam Turbine to turn the Steam Turbine which is connected to the generator. If you see some power plant that does not have HRSG, then it is called a simple cycle unit, these simple cycle unit are only used for peak power supply. Most power plant that does have HRSG are combined cycle units.

Answer 5

maybe no one has told N Power or british gas or any of the large corporations about ur idea!

Answer 6

There is always some energy wasted in any creation of power.

Friction /gravity/resistance etc

I always wondered why a travelling cars airflow could not be harneseed.

It seems it's all about cost effectiveness of harnessing energies that are seen to be free.

A lot of carbon neutral energies are not truely carbon neutral,there are costs in carbon pollution/footprints in the manufacture of the very products/machinary that harnesses that "free" power.

Heat dissapates and in your basic model you would loose too much heat as it was recycled.

Linking "free" energies maybe a better bet,like Wind turbines and solar/photovoltaic cells and battery storage/national grid entry.

Cleaner energy production should be paid by the grid at 1 . 5  times per unit than it's equivalent fossil fuelled production.

To that end we should all have been lobbying for a national (govt backed) aided reroofing of every home/office/building that can site photovoltaic tiles and/or solar panels and / or windturbines.

The production costs would be reduced by a national scheme.

The Carbon print may peak temporarily in manufacture and installation,but long term we would have far less harmful output.

Like all things it takes a public push and govt willingness to go against the status quo of big business and contract sharing amongst the "club"

Perpetual motion is impossible in an atmosphere,even in a vacum like space,you still need to add power and you still loose power.

Great thinking on your part.

Look up air power in vehicles of the very near future,compressed air motors etc.

These ideas have been around for many many decades,but the oil companies and car manufaturers have always bought them off/out and closed the competition down.

Interesting enough for a star.

Answer 7

Look up "perpetual motion" and "second law of thermodynamics"  that should answer your question.

Answer 8

Efficiency is less that 100%.  Some energy is lost.  This needs to be replaced with an energy source.

There is no perpetual motion.

Answer 9

You are really onto something. Keep working on it. One piece of advice, try to work in secret, stay off this and other sites like it as someone is bound to steal your brilliant idea.

Numbskull.

Answer 10

There's this troublesome law of physics called 'Conservation of Energy', which says you can't do that. Look up the word 'entropy'.