I haven't done the math, and I could be way off, but probably 22 square miles of solar panels could replace a nuclear plant. At probably less cost, considering that the latest nuclear plant (perhaps the last to ever be built in the USA) is projected to cost over $27 Billion.[1] Billion with a B.

PV solar has, unfortunately, the same problem as windmills. How do you store the energy for a "rainy day" (heh heh)? Nuclear plants are pretty good at operating in rainy weather and at night.

[1] https://apnews.com/90bbe5cc8e3a1a6077b9e4318e2bbf7e

~14,000 acres of solar panels (plus maintenance and stuff) is no easy feat tho.

Coincidentally, that's the size of the largest solar park in the world -> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhadla_Solar_Park

Nice link.

Loosely speaking, that park is about equal to a nuke (most nuke plants are in the range of 800 to 1000 MWe). At about 5% of the cost of the Southern Energy nuclear plant I mentioned. (pedantic note: I think of a "nuke" as a single reactor, the Southern plant actually has two. Many nuclear plants are twins).

Now if only we could get that pesky energy storage thing figured out. About 14,000 adjacent acres of Li batteries ought to do it, right? :-) Or maybe we just put the batteries under the solar cells?