Every damn power plant is a glorified steam engine

Reading the comments, it would seem most everyone here thinks that the usefulness of the steam is done when it gets used to turn a turbine at high pressure.

The steam can be used for much more than once. In the 1800's and early 1900s when steam ran trains and ships, they built double and triple expansion engines that took the energy of the steam two and three times before it was done. It doesn't need to be one and done. And when the energy is done being harvested for power generation, it can used for other things. Engineers today aren't dumber than the ones in the 1800s.

I can remember a small rural Minnesota town that had their own coal fired electric plant. (Built back before the REA was a thing). They took the left over steam from power generation and then piped it to around 200 homes in the town and heated them with the leftover steam. While a bit costly to install, it was dirt cheap to run. Those homes lost all that when the power plant was shut down and they had to switch to either natural gas, fuel oil, LP, or electricity.

So don't get hung up on just the power generation. Think what could be beyond that point.

"Dyson Spheres? Look, playing with sunlight and mirrors was a fun side project, but you want to know a much more advanced method of generating power?"

"Please dont...."

"Thats right! By hurling entire water worlds into a star, we then capture the released steam which powers our gravitationally locked dynamo network."

There are a million efficient ways to make heat and tons of new development to be made in making heat in new ways. There is relatively very little development in turning heat into kinetic energy and then electricity when size and weight are no object. The combined cycle turbine is incredibly efficient and is likely to continue to be ubiquitous in power generation for some time.

It's always been about finding new ways to spin a turbine

Most common fission reactions today release most of their energy in the form of neutrons. The only way to extract energy from neutrons is heat. But there are fission reactions which release a large portion of their energy in the form protons. And since protons are charged, their energy can be electromagnetically converted directly into electricity, with no need for intermediate process steps.

There's already at least one company building prototypes like this, Helion, using D+He3 fusion, rather than the more common D+T fusion in other reactortypes like Tokamaks.

Real engineering has a video on Helion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38

Hydrohomies!

Why don't we just pipe our water all the way out to the sun and pipe the steam back to earth.

One of the fusion startups says they can use the plasma B field directly. Basically making the plasma the rotor in an electric generator to induce current in a wire.

There's only 3 major ways to transform different forms of energy into electricity, which are:

• solar panels (light -> electricity)
• mechanical engines/generators (mechanical movement -> electricity)
• electrochemical battery (chemical dipole -> electricity)

there's a whole lot more, such as thermoelectric generator and piezoelectricity but these are the three significant ones.

note that i distinguish these categories by their core essence, such as whether they're using changes in magnetic flux (like a mechanical generator) or transferring 1 photon on each electron (like solar panels), instead of looking at what source type of energy they transform.

because there's many ways to transform e.g. light energy into electricity. you could also heat water with the sunlight and then drive a steam engine with it. but that's not what i care about. i care about the fundamental connection between different types of energy, and how they can be directly transformed to one another.

There are actually versions of fusion reactors that use the magnetic fields generated by the plasma in order to make electricity directly.

Reminds me of one of my favorite photos, a steam engine being delivered by steam engine!

Low key this is a great way to convince people to switch away from fossil fuels.

Most people seemingly don't know that coal/gas stations work by essentially boiling water. Most are horrified at how trashy and underdeveloped the concept is compared to high tech alternatives like solar, wind, or hydro.

Wasn't there one concept too with catching neutrons directly to ...generate heat, ah right.

I wonder if nuclear would get more traction If it was pitched as enhanced steam power instead

use cherenkov radiation to power photovoltaic array.

you have a better plan?