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

Why is that a problem, exactly?

With rising sea levels and general water shortages, why don't we also use them as desalination plants?

Surely there has to be a way to deal with brine, it's just salt and water after all?

Hey now, we could also use this technology breakthrough to move water from a low elevation to a higher one.

Dihydrogen monoxide is potent greenhouse gas that has caused many deaths, and we should stop using it to generate power.

Somebody was using the push against magnetic confinement in a pulse reactor to harvest magnetic - > electric directly but it's been a while since they've been in the news.

edit: Just looked up where they (Helion) are, looks like they might have overstated their position for venture capital. TBF, they are collecting energy from the spike in the confinement pulse, it's just pretty likely less than they put in to create the pulse :)

Steam makes the magnet go spinny

Could be supercritical CO~2~, actually

you have a better plan?

Before we can even try to crack fusion, we need to clear out the last of the 2000s pop bands and their videographers.

Fusion releases a daughter particle and a neutron. The daughter particle is much larger and will deposit its energy back into the plasma, the neutron will travel much further until it hits a collector outside the chamber, heating it up, which will heat water. You don't get to decide which direction the neutron goes, so you have to build this collector around the entire thing.