this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Didn't China recently use super conducting CO2 instead of water?
Supercritical CO2 has been looked at a lot for the Brayton cycle which can get 50% efficiency compared to steam that generally caps out around 34%
The US and china both published studies talking about a brayton turbine but to my knowledge no commercial plants running off of it have been built yet
Supercritical, not superconducting.
idk but you can also use molten salt
You can use molten salt to move and store heat but you don’t put it through a turbine. Molten salt systems run it through a heat exchanger that heats steam or CO2.
oh thanks i didnt know or forgot
https://youtu.be/OC9RI8_QYmw
This is what I think of when I hear molten salt.
That sounds great.