What's wrong with steam?

It's better than carbon. And solar + battery requires more carbon to produce than nuclear energy as there's a lot of mining and physical construction involved + you must overbuild to supply power or rely on non solar sources.

All for building solar. Do not understand the constant need to denigrate nuclear in favour of carbon sources while doing so.

(If carbon sources were at zero this would be a different conversation)

> Nuclear is expensive even after the reactor is build.

Solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance too. And they have much shorter operational lives than nuclear power plants, meaning they'll need to be expensively replaced much more frequently.

> And I wouldn’t call it progress to still rely on steam machines for energy

Could you please explain your objection to steam-based power? Is it purely aesthetic, or is there some inherent downside to steam turbines that I'm not aware of? Also, concentrated solar power systems that concentrate sunlight and use it to boil steam[1] are significantly more efficient than direct photovoltaics.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power