https://interestingengineering.com/energy/steam-driven-nuclear-fusion-reactor
“In a global first, Richmond, Canada-headquartered fusion energy company General Fusion achieved the first-ever plasma in a reactor driven by steam.”
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/steam-driven-nuclear-fusion-reactor
“In a global first, Richmond, Canada-headquartered fusion energy company General Fusion achieved the first-ever plasma in a reactor driven by steam.”
It is somewhat bewildering to realize that we have come all this way in technology but somewhere something is always turning water into steam to drive a piston of some sort.
There’s actually a company called Helion which is trying to skip the steam turbine step completely with fusion energy. Although generally speaking you’re correct, they’re kind of the exception that proves the rule.
Which is exactly why when Einstein got the Nobel Prize when he discovered the photoelectric! Kind of a big deal when basically everything before that was turbine driven, as you mention.
Everything before that and almost everything after that.
The only exception i know is fermenting biomass to methane and burning it.