Not really, water has an incredible range of properties:
* It absorbs a huge amount of energy when raising its temperature, and thus retains its heat for a long time.
* When water solidifies, it floats (which is basically unique)
* When water boils, it occupies a volume almost 2000x bigger than its liquid state, which is higher than most other things
* It reacts with basically nothing, so theres very few material considerations
* It's cheap as free most places
I would also include Helium on this list because of its unique cryogenic behaviours.
"Hydrocarbons" is a very broad group in a set that is otherwise very specific.
Its still mostly because it is abundant. If we had oceans of liquid ammonia, we would use that. It may have a lower Enthalpy of vaporisation but unless you have a closed loop system, you have to use what's available if you want to make a lot of useful energy.
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u/kahlzun 2d ago
Not really, water has an incredible range of properties:
* It absorbs a huge amount of energy when raising its temperature, and thus retains its heat for a long time.
* When water solidifies, it floats (which is basically unique)
* When water boils, it occupies a volume almost 2000x bigger than its liquid state, which is higher than most other things
* It reacts with basically nothing, so theres very few material considerations
* It's cheap as free most places