There are a few errors in this piece, however. First of all, GE’s LM6000 turbine is NOT a steam turbine. It is, in fact, a gas turbine. Gas turbines, of course, are also used to generate electricity for electrical ultilities. But they operate on a completely different principal. Secondly, coal does NOT have the highest energy content per pound when it comes to fossil fuels. Natural gas (which is mostly methane) is actually the winner here. Granted, if we are talking about energy per unit volume, this changes things considerably. But as far as energy per pound natural gas is the highest and coal is actually the lowest. Finally, speaking of such things as natural gas and gas turbines, it is actually quite rare to burn natural gas in a purely steam power plant. Gas turbine plants are MUCH more common. However, steam plants are typically used to utilize the energy in the hot gas turbine exhaust in order to increase overall efficiency of a natural gas power plant. Such a combined steam and gas turbine power plant is referred to simply as a combined cycle power plant. Given the high efficiency of a combined cycle power plant, natural gas is seldom used without a gas turbine to generate electricity.

There is one erre however. You say
“Even nuclear power plants just use radioactive material whose chemical energy becomes thermal energy to heat up the same water for steam. (There is only the added issue of radioactive waste.)”
Not quite true. Nuclear plants do not use CHEMICAL energy, that is energy that links atoms together into molecules : they use NUCLEAR energy, that is energy that links protons and neutrons together to form an atom’s core or “nucleus” (hence the name “nuclear”). Nuclear energy is millions of times more dense than chemical energy : a few pounds of uranium (or a few ounces of hydrogen when fusion processes will be controlled) generate as much energy as tons of coal, petroleum or natural gaz (or biomass or ethanol).

For the rest, you are right : nuclear reactors produce heat to give steam that will turn turbines which turn electrical generators (or alternators).