From reading Smil though I come away with the idea that informed discussion on this matter is basically impossible because the subject is too complicated. People will just talk their prior beliefs.
It is really a bad situation no matter how you look at it.
The discussion needs to be about gigajoules per hectare but I have never read anyone mention that other than Smil. This of course could be my ignorance.
Remember that for nuclear you have to factor in the size of the potential nuclear exclusion zone, which was 4,143 square km for Chernobyl and up to 807 square km for Fukushima.
The late Prof. MacKay writes in those terms too.
Somewhat less true if You take into account that specifically solar can (and often is) constructed on residential / industrial rooftops.
You’ll never power an aircraft carrier or submarine with it, and even space craft solar collectors pale in power output and longevity to nuclear solutions.
What I was trying to touch is the argument about land use. I don't want to stereotype, but oftentimes these things are a product of simple "back of the envelope" calculations where someone takes surface of one panel per Watt and tries to calculate how big of an area would You need to replace N nuclear reactors of given power.
Not the first time I saw it. It's a sort of a theme I see in discussions around me with people from STEM over 50 (not saying that's You, it's just where I keep hearing it).
Nuclear made a lot of sense in the 60s-70s, sure. But since maybe 20 years or so the alternatives are getting better / cheaper / generally improving way faster than nuclear currently is. And so is the energy grid. Makes sense to update those arguments then.
Compare that with nuclear indirect (aka solar) which requires a lot of space and a lot of projects to scale.