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coppice:

--- Quote from: TimFox on October 29, 2023, 09:55:03 pm ---Although dictionaries may differ on this, I was taught that "steam" was the visible material that included water vapor and droplets, as seen in a teakettle or steam locomotive, but that "water vapor" was invisible.
Humidity, however, can contain both water vapor and water droplets.

--- End quote ---
The usual terms, like your find in books about steam engines and turbines, are wet steam and dry steam. Wet steam. which is visible. is a mix of gas and fine droplets. When there are no droplets left its called dry steam, and is a true gas.

TimFox:
Besides dry (saturated) and wet (unsaturated, the most common type) steam, steam-plant engineering also defines superheated steam and supercritical water.
https://www2.tlv.com/steam-info/steam-theory/steam-basics/types-of-steam

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: helius on October 29, 2023, 09:48:58 pm ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 29, 2023, 09:34:43 pm ---Ultrasonic aerosolizers/nebulizers/atomizers/etc. do not convert the liquid to vapor (gas): there is no phase transition.  They only mechanically chop the liquid up into tiny little droplets.  There is basically no temperature change, and only very little energy spent in the mechanical chopping action.

--- End quote ---
Ultimately there must be a phase transition, because it increases the humidity of the air in the environment.
--- End quote ---
Don't forget: even if you have absolutely dry air and expose liquid water, you'll get some water vapor in the air.  See vapour pressure of vapour.  The ambient air, water vapor, and water (both in vessels and in droplets) are in (well, tend towards) thermodynamic equilibrium.  (Analogously, you do get some water vapour from warm water even if it is not boiling hot.)

The energy for these state transitions are provided by the temperature of both the water and the ambient air.
This happens independently of the aerosolizer/nebulizer/atomizer/etc., with the tiny droplets having huge surface area compared to one liquid blob of water.
You can get the same humidity effect by having running water in the same room.

Electrodynamic:

--- Quote ---The solar panels will keep on producing that 1 watt for decades, long after you have burnt those 10 watts worth of oil.
In any case, watts by themselves are meaningless.
You need to use "watt-hours.
--- End quote ---

The standard solar cell power loss for most panels is around 1% per year. So after 25 years the output drops to 75% of the rated output which is pretty good. I mean how many devices do we own that are still operating day after day for 25 years?, very few.

As well many people seem infatuated with performance and ignore other facts. What's wrong with 50 year old solar panels still producing 50% of the rated output?. For many not so lucky people 50 years is a lifetime. Most people could install solar panels today and would be dead by the time the output ever dropped below 50% of the rated output.

On "free energy", the Sun has been producing around 12 million trillion trillion trillion trillion Joules of energy per year for about 4.6 billion years. We didn't create or produce the Sun or it's energy and it has nothing to do with us. By definition the Sun's energy is free and the only cost related to us is when we want to convert it to some other form. So to me it seems more than a little egoistical that some people believe the world and energy still revolves around them.

coppice:

--- Quote from: Electrodynamic on September 07, 2024, 05:16:47 pm ---I mean how many devices do we own that are still operating day after day for 25 years?, very few.

--- End quote ---
Most infrastructure operates for more than 25 years. Not just the big grid stuff, but the wiring, pipes, taps, sockets and other fittings in your own home.

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