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Nuclear Power Is Just Boiling Water refers to a series of memes about power production, primarily nuclear power generation, in which the entire process is exposed as simply boiling water through various means. Started by a 2020 Troll Science meme, the memes maintained a continuous presence in the following years online.

Origin

While jokes about the basic process in nuclear energy production essentially being the boiling of water to generate steam and then pushing turbines to produce electricity appeared prior, the earliest viral meme on the topic (a Troll Science comic) was posted by Twitter[1] user @380kmh on November 30th, 2020, and gained over 340 retweets and 3,700 likes in two years (seen below). On the same day, the comic was reposted to iFunny,[2] where it gained over 500 smiles in two years. On Tumblr,[3] a repost of the comic by user str0kethebigtree then accumulated over 50,000 likes and reblogs in two years.

GET A PLUTONIUM ROD 1.1 WATER BOILS AND TURNS PROPELLER PUT IN A BOWL OF WATER USE ENERGY FROM PROPELLER TU POWER CITY

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On January 7th, 2022, an anonymous 4chan user posted a rant about nuclear power production boiling down to "boiling water" in a /lit/ thread. On January 18th, 2022, Redditor[4] chr8me posted a screenshot of the post in the /r/4chan subreddit, where it gained over 11,600 upvotes in one year (shown below).

Anonymous 01/07/22(Fri)20:45:36 No.19708080>>19708096 >>19708107 >>19708112 >>19708127 >>19710099 >>19710226 I f------ cannot stand it at all that all nuclear power plants do is boil water. The history of humanity is nothing but boiling water. In the future there will be new ways to boil water and that's it. F--- it.

Throughout 2022, multiple memes about boiling water being the basic process in nuclear power production went viral online. For example, on April 9th, 2022, Twitter[5] user @DSAConstanza posted a tweet that received over 3,900 retweets and 48,700 likes prior to being removed (shown below, left). On September 19th, iFunny[6] user Mosley_Actual posted a That's It? That's the Lost Episode? meme that was featured on the app and received over 13,100 smiles in four months (shown below, right).

Kusi Costanza @DSACostanza I stopped caring about science when I found out Nuclear Power was just about boiling water to turn turbines instead of directly harnessing glowing green energy 18:49 09 Apr. 22 Twitter for Android
THAT'S IT? THAT WAS THE Nuclear power? THAT WAS JUST Boiling water

Various Examples

THAT'S IT? THAT WAS NUCLEAR FUSION? THAT WAS JUST BOILING WATER! la...
>new way to make electricity >look inside >boiling water
sinclairism @lairofclair Learning that shotguns just throw little balls at you is like learning that nuclear power is just making water boil really quickly heavy team fortres 2 @heavyfortres · Oct 10, 2022 "It could be you! It could be me! It could even b-" 2:27 AM Oct 11, 2022

Anonymous 01/07/22(Fri)20:45:36 No.19708080✓ >>19708096 >>19708107 >>19708112 >>19708127 >>19710099 >>19710226 I f------ cannot stand it at all that all nuclear power plants do is boil water. The history of humanity is nothing but boiling water. In the future there will be new ways to boil water and that's it. F--- it. European scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion - the energy process that powers the stars. The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen. If nuclear fusion can be successfully recreated on Earth it holds out the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy. The experiments produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds (11 megawatts of power). This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997. It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. But the significance is that it validates design choices that have been made for an even bigger fusion reactor now being constructed in France.
8:51 / 15:03 Vastaukset 8,5 t. CC 日 173 [] Tio Caleb' riverboat jamboree • 9 kuukautta sitten Nuclear power in a nutshell: 10,000 years of human technological advancement to boil water. x :
Ava Eva Thornton @AvaEvaThornton ♫? Replying to @DSACostanza Wind power: slowing down air Hydro power: slowing down water Tide power: slowing down water Wave power: calming down water Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: boiling refrigerants Coal power: boiling water Nuclear power: boiling water Geothermal: boiling water Biomass: boiling water 4:07 PM Apr 10, 2022

Search Interest

External References

[1] Twitter – @380kmh

[2] iFunny – tombestig

[3] Tumblr – zvaigzdelasas

[4] Reddit – Anon describes humanity

[5] Twitter – @DSACostanza

[6] iFunny – Mosley_Actual



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