It's a weird argument to say "Nuclear does this, solar does not" as if the two are against one another and you are comparing them.
Here, I'll do the same thing: "Nuclear produces power 24/7, while solar can only usefully produce power for ~8 hours a day, or 1/3 of the day".
Sure, for that 1/3 of the day, solar does not have political problems like being shut down for danger. However, for 2/3 of the day, nuclear does not have the physics problem of being useless.
Each solution has pros and cons and I want my power to come from both.
Real world grid scale solar + storage is not cheaper, and humanity doesn't even have the battery capacity and won't for some time longer.
And speaking of regional poisoning, I guess all of those heavy metal mines in poorer countries creating some quite dystopian scenes of large scale ecological destruction leading to total ecosystem collapse are OK because "NIMBY"! Can't wait to 10X that, especially when I remember that the energy density of nuclear fuels is so insanely high that the mining impact for powering all of humanity on it is something like 50X less than powering all of humanity on lithium batteries!
Dedicated batteries are not cheaper yet, but (a) price is still on a rapid downward trend, (b) repurposing old batteries from electric cars once the batteries are no longer good enough for transport is cheaper, and (c) it isn't the only storage mechanism, for example pumped hydroelectric and hydrogen are both really cheap.
The battery production capacity is currently in a rapid growth phase. I'm not sure what timescales you think are "for some time longer", but I think 10 (optimistic) to 20 years (pessimistic) would be enough to see the global electricity market almost totally (95% or more) transformed to renewables.
While I personally am relaxed about nuclear power if it's done right, the political realities are that it terrifies people and that corners get cut just often enough to make the terror not entirely unjustified, so it's not going to happen on a significant scale unless there's a reason for the government to ignore the will of the people.
You missed the part (well, you IGNORED the part...) where I talk about energy density.
That's obvious because you don't want to compare the amount of lithium required for billions of cars and grid scale solar to cover 16 hours of energy per day.
You ignored it because 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal, approx. 12 kWh from 1 kg of mineral oil and around 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235.
Not only is uranium extremely energy dense, but power facilities are extremely small. Nuclear facilities are by far the smallest energy producing facilities, and solar fields are among the largest (both in terms of space and raw materials). This produces mining and material savings at every single step.
A world powered by Uranium only would require probably somewhere between 10,000X to 100,000 less mining than a world powered by solar batteries.
Energy density is absolutely irrelevant except in a vehicle. Which utility power manifestly ain't.
And the energy density of uranium is irrelevant even sessile, because it takes hundreds to thousands of times more mass around it to get useful energy out.
I had ignored it so as not to embarrass you further.
Lol wow! This feels like one of those situations that Germans have a very long and special word for: When someone tries to spare you a minor embarrassment but in doing so creates a major one for themselves.
While you might not think several orders of magnitude have meaning, fortunately here in reality the fact that it requires far less overall mining to create and supply a uranium power station that it does to create and supply an equivalent (in power output) solar field with batteries has huge meaning.
While I do thank you for looking out for me, I urge you to in the future take time to introspect on yourself and views, so as to save yourself these issues. I know no one tries to be a hypocrite intentionally, so I know these are resolvable problems for the average HN'er. Good luck!
What matters in (clean) utility power generation is cost. Period.
Unless this magickal energy density results in lower-cost electrical output, in quantity, it is just a load of guff.
What we know is that every use of uranium for civil power generation, ever, delivered only extremely expensive power. There has never been a single reactor, worldwide, that was not heavily subsidized by taxpayers, coerced above-market rates, or both. Nukes get even less competitive with each passing year, as the cost for renewables continues plummeting with no bottom in sight.
So, the compelling evidence is that energy density is of extremely limited value for civil power generation. If it has any practical value at all, its copious orders of magnitude are yet insufficient to overcome its extremely poor cost effectiveness.
And, places in the US where uranium was mined are marked by poisoned groundwater and early death. Those poisoned are not impressed with its magick. Nor am I.
Here, I'll do the same thing: "Nuclear produces power 24/7, while solar can only usefully produce power for ~8 hours a day, or 1/3 of the day".
Sure, for that 1/3 of the day, solar does not have political problems like being shut down for danger. However, for 2/3 of the day, nuclear does not have the physics problem of being useless.
Each solution has pros and cons and I want my power to come from both.