There are two "renewable" sources of power: solar (wind and hydro are there with solar, but their energy potential is smaller and their downsides larger) and nuclear*.
Solar makes a lot of energy, but:
- you need a lot of land to make energy
- energy generation scales poorly with materials required
- you lose efficiency because you have to transport the power from the optimal place to every other place
By contrast, nuclear can be built anywhere regardless of climate (greatly reducing transmission loss), fuel is fairly widely distributed (i.e. every big political bloc has a good source of uranium), it provides continuous power, and material costs are low to build massive plants. And there is a lot of energy stored in the world's nuclear reserve. Way more energy than is stored in coal/ng/oil. Because of the energy density of nuclear fuel, if you add a little bit more material input, you get a lot more power. Not true with solar or any other source.
You can't run an entire advanced economy on solar, or even majority on solar. By contrast, you can have a 100% zero emissions economy run entirely on nuclear. My main point would be that if we want to continue to grow technologically, energy production must be centered on nuclear, with enhancements to efficiency provided by solar energy. Energy is the ultimate constraint on human development.
That's not what we have, though. Most people think that we can completely de-carbonize using solar energy which is false. Running an entire grid on batteries at night is a pipe dream -- the US grid has 3 seconds of energy storage total. By contrast, the technology for a completely de-carbonized modern economy exists right now with nuclear.
* I consider nuclear "renewable" because there's so much energy that in the short term, it may as well be.