Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
...So, a pretty interesting topic. Some inaccuracies in the article though:
Currently, the only method to convert nuclear technology into electricity is through nuclear fission. In the process, water is heated to create steam. The steam is then converted into mechanical energy that generates electricity.
This is not actually true; in addition to full-blown nuclear reactor that just generate heat and run the turbines with it, nuclear technology itself is also utilized in atomic batteries.
Actually this kinda reminds me of the principle of betavoltaic batteries where the electrons emitted by beta-active isotope are directly utilized as voltage. And while we're at it, there's also
optoelectric method of collecting the energy of beta particles (in this case they excite some matter which starts to emit photons, which is converted to electricity).
So the interesting bit is how the conversion of "ionic energy" is converted into light. But the article doesn't go into details on how it actually happens, so I'm reduced to guessing as searching for "Photon-Intermediate Direct Energy Conversion" just returns links to different versions of the same news...
What is ionic energy? I've never heard of ionic energy being used as a scientific term, but I would hazard a guess that it means the high kinetic energy of ions that are generated in nuclear reactions. It's unclear what that means though, as "ion" has a pretty broad definition - technically a proton is an ion, and alpha particles as well. The daughter nuclei of a split nucleus could become high velocity ions. The ionizing radiation released in the reaction could, well, ionize particles nearby. It could be all these.
The most likely way to make the conversion of kinetic energy of ions into visible light is pretty much the same idea the optoelectric nuclear battery uses, but instead of beta particles (electrons) there's probably a variety of ions that does different things.
A question arises though, why couldn't these ions not be converted directly into voltage, same as how betavoltaic batteries do it. Obvious answer might indeed be that it's easier with jsut a stream of electrons and no other nasty isotopes messing things up. Plus betavoltaic batteries require the isotope to be in fine dust form that the beta particles just pass through so they can be utilized.
Of course, I also find myself asking why wouldn't it be feasible to simply use the thermal radiation instead of visible light - the same as thermophotovoltaic batteries do... and again obvious answer is that nuclear reactors work on so large power output levels that the thermal radiation isn't simply sufficient for this kind of use - or the size of the facility would be darn huge.
Which leads to the follow-up question; how much nuclear energy can feasibly be converted into visible light and that visible light into electricity?
The main advantages of this system, as I see it, would be the possibility of making much smaller reactors much more feasible and it would basically remove the most risky and malfunction-prone components of nuclear power - the high pressure steam and fluid circuits that cool the reactor and run the turbines.
In short, it would be possible to run the reactor cool and keep the temperature at safe levels with the control rods; there would be no need to ever let the reactor run hot enough to need an active cooling system, and the reactor would not need to be in a pressurized vessel. All this would improve the safety of nuclear power rather immensely.
However, at the same time it seems to me that this method would have some inherent limitations on the power output. How much light can you direct at a normal photovoltaic cell before it start to heat up and eventually melt or ignite? The intensity of the light would determine the size of the panel array constructed around the shining reactor. So the more power you planned on getting from individual reactor, the bigger sphere of "solar panels" you need to build around the photon generator.
I can't bother doing calculations at the moment but you get the picture. This method might be more efficient way of converting nuclear fission power into electricity, but unless the power output matches the amount of energy you can carry away from the reactor core with a stream of fluid (like water), it might not be a commercially viable option... or if it requires a panel array the size of
Gluben arena, it might be a tad bit unpractical.
Then there's also the question, how well and reliably will all this equipment (the photon generator as well as the photoelectric cells) work in continuous environment of ionizing radiation? Betavoltaic batteries suffer damage to their internal components by the high energy electrons in the beta particle stream, so most likely this stuff will have a limited service time no matter how it's built, and then it needs to be changed. As I have no idea what kind of components is required and how pricey this would be, I can't say how viable this would be... but then again, the turbines and coolant pipes of traditional nuclear reactors require servicing as well.
