It’s been more than 200 years since the widespread implementation of the steam engine.
Why is this still the most prevalent means of producing electricity? With things like fusion reactors, why is it so hard to convert the thermal energy into electrical energy?
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There’s a method of directly generating energy from heat (Seebeck effect), but it’s extremely inefficient. About 5% efficiency compared to the steam method which can be around 40% efficiency.
In general, it’s just not useful. However some technologies in space utilizes thermoelectric generators for simple electronics. In that case, most space probes are energy efficient enough that a steady small energy generation can be useful.
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