I find some merit in your argument. I feel like the GP said "We use lots of turbines, isn't that interesting" and I said "It's nice to see the common factor her

I find some merit in your argument. I feel like the GP said "We use lots of turbines, isn't that interesting" and I said "It's nice to see the common factor here is a translation of pressure -> electricity" or "temperature -> energy." So what I thought I was contributing here was an explanation of why we like steam and turbines so much. I'm pretty sure that steam, turbines, etc have a big efficiency loss. Like you guessed, I meant "the best way we know of to do it at industrial scale now."