The hydradyne is the basis for this approach. If you are’t familiar with it, you’ll need to back up to read about the hydradyne engine for any of this discussion to make sense.

The basic hydradyne engine is a pipe (hot head) with a flow restrictor and a cold head at each end, as shown here:

The entire engine is filled with water and the hot head (only) is heated until the water temperature exceeds the critical temperature and the water becomes a superfluid. At that point the water in the engine will oscillate vigorously between the two cold heads, and the flow will be most rapid through the reduced-size passages in the flow restrictors.

If an ionized fluid flows through a magnetic field, the positive ions will be driven in a direction perpendicular to both the direction of flow and direction of the magnetic field - and the negative ions will be driven in the opposite direction.

If a pair of electrodes are positioned so that one is a “target” for the positive ions and another is positioned so as to be a target for the negative ions, then electrical power will flow through a conductor connecting the two electrodes. This is called the Faraday Effect, named for Michael Faraday who identified the phenomenon back in the 19th century. The general term used for the study of this effect is magnetohydrodynamics and, for obvious reasons, the name is frequently shortened to MHD.

The necessary ionization can be produced by adding an ionizing agent (common table salt or a heat-stable detergent might do the job) to the water.

Here’s a conceptual diagram showing fluid flow, the magnetic field, the electrodes (blue), and a circuit connecting the electrodes:

If you’d like to learn more of the theory so that you can design a real-world MHD generator this PDF document offered by the University of California at San Diego appears to be fairly comprehensive. A word of warning: If you didn’t study electrical engineering, you’ll benefit from coaching by a friendly EE.

Most conveniently, the hydradyne has two points at which MHD sections can be incorporated - and those are in the flow restrictors, where the flow is fastest. It could hardly be better suited for the job. I’ve re-drawn the hydradyne showing the dual integrated flow restrictor/MHD sections:

and here is a conceptual cross-sectional view of a restrictor/MHD assembly, showing an electromagnet, the electrodes, and the passage through which the super-critical water flows:

I originally planned to power the engine by concentrating solar radiation on the hot head as shown in this sketch:

Then I learned that it’s possible to build a tiny 4½ kW nickel/hydrogen LENR reactor that could actually fit inside the hot head - which would allow wrapping the hot head in insulation to avoid wasting as much heat as would be radiated away with the solar-powered version. Here’s a concept sketch for a portable generator capable of running 24 hours per day for six months on a single 50 gram charge of powdered nickel fuel:

Please note that this is not a design document – there’s a fair amount of important detail that doesn’t appear here, but I hope that what I’ve presented will provide a basic understanding of what should turn out to be an elegantly simple electric generator.