[locallost]

Solar panel recycling is a hot topic, that already works for some parts and even if we don't progress at all it will not cost hundreds of billions per country like it does now for nuclear already. Per country is vague but mostly large countries have nuclear now anyway and dozens if not hundreds of reactors. Yeah, "same".

[Moldoteck]

Comparison should be made per kw generated. How much money for reprocessing 1kg of nuclear that produced x amount of energy vs how much money for solar panels that should be recycled and produced the same x amount. There are other options too like building breeding reactors to reduce the costs over time but that's another topic

[locallost]

Let's take Germany as an example. The German nuclear plant operators made a deal with the state in 2017 for it to take responsibility of the waste. They paid 23 billion to wash their hands of their own product, and the estimate is that it will cost over 100 billion. But again, it's the tax payers' problem now. [1]

Let's take Britain as an example. It has a nuclear waste storage facility in Sellafield that costs billions every year to run and the price for the final solution is anyone's guess, again we are talking about hundreds of billions - 263 billion pounds is the latest estimate to be exact. [2]

Let's take Finland as an example, which is a smaller country. It plans to dispose of the waste in a specially built nuclear facility that cost billions. They will then depose 300 caskets there made of thousands of tons of iron and copper, again costing billions.[3]

Now whatever the cost of solar panel disposal will be, I am pretty sure the number will not be 100 billion and it will not be 23 billion either. And it will not be a really big issue what to do with it, and the vast majority of it will likely be recycled.

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-... [3] https://www.trtworld.com/europe/finland-to-bury-nuclear-wast...