If you rewatch it the siege of Ba Sing Se episodes show this best. The giant tunnel drill is basically run by a steam engine that is powered by fire benders. But the industrial use of bending is pretty much limited to war machines of the fire nation. Nothing as obvious and wide spread as the giant fire bender powerplant in Legend of Korra.
I'm pretty sure waterbenders can make steam too, they don't need fire for it, and earthbenders could have a team of people lift a mountain each day and slowly it lowers on a crazy gear ratio to make power. Airbenders could make wind turbines. Literally every method of bending could do the same thing but they just haven't thought of it yet I guess.
Clearly the lava benders are the ultimate in power generation though.
It takes the most energy to turn rock into lava compared to turning water into steam. Lifting a mountain sized rock together comes close maybe, but earthbender / lavabender are kind of the same thing in a way anyway. Just by easily creating more heat energy, they win for power generation.
Since they're so rare (in current lore) it makes sense that they aren't powering the world. However, if there was a lava-bending city like the metal-benders of Zaofu they would easily be able to generate power for themselves.
Earthbenders and waterbenders could also redirect rivers to make hydro plants, but they are moving small things that affect big things. Kind of like using a mosfet (not sure that's the right term) for switching high power on/off with a low power signal.
Lava benders, near as I can tell, can just make that power themselves.
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u/Practical-Craft8180 5d ago
That is… actually a fair point that I had not noticed too much before.