For fuck’s sake! It’s both, you can’t rely on a single one.
Guess which one it is being used and will be used for decades to come while everyone is distracted arguing which one is better?

It seems like battery+solar is the cheapest worldwide as of recently.

I am not familiar with UK conditions. Scandinavian winters remain a problem for solar.

It depends on a lot of factors, which is part of why the question is divisive. To oversimplify:

On one hand, when done optimally, nuclear provides huge amounts of power extremely cleanly and safely - even compared to renewables. There is also a number of options that could allow for significantly reduced costs and significantly increased flexibility such as SMRs, or other reactor technologies. On the other hand, nuclear has a mountain of roadblocks in front of it including antinuclear sentiment, policy blocks (particularly stemming from that sentient), and a lack of know-how increasing cost and slowing both building of reactors and development of new technologies. This means it could be amazing in the long term, particularly in regions that are suboptimal for renewables, and for industries requiring large amounts of power 24/7, but it can’t do much in the short-term.

Renewables meanwhile, are cheap, fast and easy to build and easy to expand to the point where until ideal conditions, even individuals can afford to install and run their own electrical infrastructure. As such, its amazing to quickly reduce prices, reduce emissions, and reduce dependence on governments. On the other hand, most renewable options lack flexibility. Solar only runs half the day, and the further you are from the equator, the lower the efficacy. Wind takes up huge amounts of space. Hydro requires damable rivers and space to avoid destroying ecosystems. There’s lots of options, but they also have large limits. As technology improves these will limits will be reduced (such as improving battery technology) but they are still present.

Ultimately, this means that where available, renewables are nearly always best in the short term. Long term, it gets messier, since it depends on what we invest in now, which technologies end up going somewhere versus being dead ends, and how the world changes in general. Most predict a mixed approach would be best, both to address the variety of global needs, and to spread risk. All that said, global warming is, at this point, a short-term problem. We can’t afford to focus on the long-term anymore, which is why there is so much focus on renewables. We need to be replacing and expanding infrastructure yesterday so we don’t have time to wait for nuclear, and debatably, can’t afford to be investing in an energy technology that won’t pay off for decades when that could be further invested in renewables.

If the area has good and reliable access to the sun or strong winds, solar and wind will be cheaper.

If it doesn’t, nuclear is there to have your back.

Also, you can put a nuclear power plant on a ship (like Russia and China do) and deliver nuclear power to coastal areas while the proper infrastructure is (re-)built.

There is no universal best way to produce power, you need to mix and match to make a good grid.

A combination of the two: Renewables and SMRs.

Nuclear is great but there’s a very small amount of uranium 235 (what is used to instantiate the chain). that’s the biggest issue, I think the relative abundance is 0.5 - 0.9% compared to uranium 238 98 or 99 percent.

Even the efficiency is like 33% where wind is 40 - 60% (depending on on shore or offshore) and solar is 20%. The main appeal here isn’t about optimization, even at the lower efficiency it produces a fuck ton of energy. 92 reactors produce the entire energy generation supply of 17%. There is approximately a thousand gas plants to produce the 40% of US energy generation, and we are talking about combined cycle level efficiencies (60%). If we doubled our nuclear power plant fleet to 200 nuclear reactors, we would generate more energy then the current leader in energy generation. Nuclear power plants produce a shit ton of energy.

The main reason to go with renewables, long term, is it doesnt use limited resources, and that there is still a lot of R&D that can’t be known theoretically, but through trial and error. With wind turbines, for example, there is so much mechanical failure as a result of the torque being generated by the wind, I wouldn’t be surprised if the turbine just breaks off from the base of the windmill.

PV cells also have a lot of R&D going for them, not mechanically, but electrically. The PV cells we commonly use they are generally inefficient because once light passes through the PV cell theres more energy that could be used. There are techniques to combat this issue by stacking multiple solar cells and running it through a wire, but that technique also costs more money.

SMRs I would consider are also the future due to lower upfront cost and maintenance costs, its easily commercializable compared to nuclear power plants (which are designed from scratch).

Wind and solar. Pop up, pop down. Nuclear needs entrenched infrastructure. The future is always renewables.