system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Dear askscience: Developing a nuclear fusion reactor so we can ... heat water to generate steam to spin a magnet inside a copper coil seems like caveman overkill.  Is there really no better way to generate electricity?
gpt
Turbines are easily the most cost efficient means of converting heat into electricity that we have. A supercritical water turbine can reach an efficiency of 50%. In comparison, even the most efficient high-tech solar cells we have only get about 40%, with your typical solar panel at 10%. In principle Stirling engines can get a higher efficiency, but it's expensive to build Stirling engines rated for a large power output. 

What makes turbines so useful is that they scale extremely well, allowing you to relatively cheaply build a large device with a high efficiency. It is also relatively straight forward to optimise the turbine's properties to make it as efficient as possible for a given power plant. 

As a bonus, the turbines can be made to spin at a rate which matches the AC current used in most electric transmission lines. This frequency is important because it determines how much energy is wasted through capacitive losses during transmission. Changing the frequency of an AC current is difficult to do efficiently, so if your generation scheme can create the right frequency to begin with, it simplifies things considerably.