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Our entire society* has been based on burning things. Then we progressed to... burning atoms.
(*Exceptions I can think of is solar, wind, hydro.)
Then we're leaching off the sun burning atoms.
Ohhhhh!
Solar farms did start out as using the sun to boil water. Basically mirrors redirecting light to a central point to super-heat a pipe flowing with water.
Theres actually been a major increase in solar thermal power stations in the last few years
Oh so that's what that big central tower in New Vegas was. I never put two and two together.
Wind and hydro still have to spin a turbine. Solar is the one true stand out advancement in electricity production since we started using electricity.
They spin it directly though, not via steam.
Technically, as long as there's more than zero percent humidity I guess wind turbines are still powered by steam. And hydro is essentially steam, too, just the cooler version.
ACKSHUALLY you're not burning atoms in a nuclear reaction. You're creating a chain reaction of neutrons colliding with Uranium isotopes. No combustion.
To be fair, the atoms were going to burn anyhow. We just clumped them together to make better use of them.