Why can’t raw energy be stored or used but has to be transformed to heat or other forms and then be used for e.g. electricity?

Question

They explained how a power plant works in the Chernobyl mini-series. One part that got me thinking is how they use the energy from the fission to heat up that generate the steam which in turn run the turbin and give electricity (Correct me if i’m wrong).

What I don’t understand is why can’t the raw energy from the fission directly be used instead of going the whole cycle? What kind of energy is released from the fission and why can’t it be stored in a battery or capacitor-like thing?

In: Physics

Answer 1

In general, heat is produced. In detail it’s flying tiny particles, but they are going to hit something except in a pretty hard vacuum, so in practice you’re talking about heat.

In general, we don’t want to make things hot by slamming radioactive particles into them. So, we turn that heat into electricity.