650 billions dollars as for now to clean up... What about costs of keeping that stuff safe for next 50 years? What about costs for next 300 years? I dont want grandkids of my grandkids to pay for that. You can buy a lot of powerwalls for that. Thats why tesla got contracts to reduce tensions on electrical grid in california.
Ignoring that is a recipe for sky high prices and rolling blackouts, as well as the widespread abandonment of the entire enterprise. Those costs need to be factored in and then nuclear starts looking much, much better. It's not just solar not working at night -- even a cloudy day can result in 80% losses for solar. And wind is very intermittent.
The costs of keeping nuclear waste safe for 50 years is trivial compared to the costs of going through hundreds of billions of batteries and then recycling them over the same period of time, not to mention what to do with trillions of solar panels after they end their useful life, which is much shorter than 50 years. Solar and wind have a much bigger and more expensive waste problem, especially when you realize you need to recycle the batteries too.
As for night time harvesting energy, we've already solved the issue (and one i link is not the only one) : https://www.saurenergy.com/solar-energy-news/arriving-soon-s...
No one mentioned hydrogen which was being hold by OPEC, but now its getting traction.
No, it only needs to be protected until the radioactivity is the same as background level, or whatever comes from a banana (which is much higher than background level but still safe).
Seriously the amount of radioactive waste produced is extremely small and dealing with it may be a political problem because people are irrationally terrified, but it's not a technical or financial problem. Dig a hole, put the waste in, and cover it up. It's not some lighter than air stuff that will bubble out of the hole, form a monster, and then ravage the earth.
Now do the same for recycling many billions of tons of batteries and solar panels each year, which are made of lead, which is a known toxin and never stops being a toxin.
Solar, wind, and battery waste is a much harder and much more expensive problem to deal with -- one that we don't have any practical solutions for at the moment.