There are also some chemical modes of electricity generation (Alkalai batteries, etc). Also using flowing water to move Turbines like dams.

But then the meme isn't as fun here, and those are such a small minority of how we generate powers.

Seebeck generators

That's the most common proposal for MHD generators - once it goes thru the MHD proper you use the waste heat to drive a conventional powerplant. Unfortunately MHD requires the production of plasma to be effective, and plasma just does not like to exist, so the engineering practicalities make it... unlikely to ever be even remotely viable outside of incredibly niche applications (although non-plasma MHD has been studied, and I believe there are even some human trials, to power implants in the body like pacemakers and I remember reading about nervous-interface devices in mice that used arterial MHD on to generate the microcurrent needed)

Well, not an engineer myself, either, but generally speaking that would greatly increase the systems complexity, which generally increases maintenance costs, down time, and the initial cost of the system.

You might be able to eke out a bit more power, but there’s more to the decision than total output and how efficient it is.

What I would imagine were a fusion-powered MHD being useful would be as a front end to fusion-based plasma propulsion. (Basically something like the VSIMR, Hall effect or whatever plasma thruster, where the fusion reaction generates both some power to create the thrust and its exhaust plasma is also the reaction mass.(I mentioned I’m not an engineer… right? Just an incorrigible nerd who likes sci-fi.)

To me, and apparently the Greeks!

It is not known whether the aeolipile was put to any practical use in ancient times, and if it was seen as a pragmatic device, a whimsical novelty, an object of reverence, or some other thing.

Stars are a lot cooler then fusion reactors.

It's in their outer layers that they produce a shit ton of photons.

Fusion reactors are way hotter (like 100m Celsius) and although they make photons most are very high energy (think gamma, xrays etc).

So what would be emitted as visible light would never be enough to generate enough power via pvc to pay back the cost of generating the fusion reaction in the first place much less the cost of building the plant.

Also pvc is like at best 22%~ efficient. You're losing a lot compared to say steam powered generators which, using ultra super critical hot steam made by a fusion reactor could maybe hit 60% (I believe that is high as you can go).

Asianonmetry has a great lecture on steam powered generators

https://youtu.be/suCEKLCCgzw

I fell like it should be possible to make solar panels that don't contain iron, nickel, or cobalt.

We've gotten really, really good at extracting energy from steam, steam turbines can be incredibly efficient, I can't recall exact figures but Wikipedia cites 90% as the top end.

The majority of the energy released will be heat, relatively few high energy photons are released so ‘solar’ isn’t a viable option and your suggestion about a particle accelerator just doesn’t make any sense.

Boiling water is literally the best way to capture the energy released.

You identified the solution. Use a solar panel and let the reactor in the center of our system do the work. Add a batteries to make up for being blocked. Today, solar AND batteries are cheaper than fission reactors. Fusion has promise, but why over invest in a maybe when you can use the technology we have today? Is it because It has an end game where you don't infinity extract resources? Who would want that?