Reinventing the wheel Memes

The eternal cycle of renewable energy innovation! Every budding scientist dreams of revolutionizing the energy sector until they realize they've just reinvented the steam engine. Steam power has been the backbone of electricity generation since the 1880s—we just keep finding fancier ways to boil water. Nuclear? Boiling water. Coal? Boiling water. Concentrated solar? You guessed it... boiling water. The excited "Yippee!" is the perfect cherry on top of our collective technological déjà vu. Even with our fancy degrees and billion-dollar research budgets, we're still basically sophisticated kettle operators.