> Wouldn't it be better to just go with nuclear?

Only if you want the spicy radioisotopes. For some people that's a benefit, for others that's a problem.

Who controls the spice, controls the ~~universe~~ nuclear deterrent.

If all you care about is price, the combination of PV and batteries is already cheaper, and builds out faster.

> Isn't this a gigantic waste of space and overhead to maintain it?

No. Have you seen how big the planet is? There's enough land for about 10,000 times current global power use.

If your nation has a really small land area, e.g. Singapore, then you do actually get to care about the land use; China is not small, they don't need to care.

> And how "renewable" are the materials used to produce these?

Worst case scenario? Even if they catch fire, that turns them into metal oxides which are easier to turn back into new PV than the original rocks the same materials came out of in the first place.

Unlike coal, where the correct usage is to set them on fire and the resulting gas is really hard to capture, and nuclear, where the correct usage is to emit a lot of neutrons that make other things radioactive.