I have 21.1kW of solar panels on my barn, and nuclear is still the cleanest energy at scale, but a lot. Also, solar panels can’t be realistically recycled and when the panels are done, they’re destined to landfills. At least they’re finding ways to recycle wind farm rotor blades.
Something that's mostly aluminium, glass, silicon and silver can't be recycled? You going to tell these guys? https://solarrecyclingsolutions.co.uk/solar-panel-recycling/...
Sure there are niche recycling firms that lose money doing so, but they’re the extreme rarity vs the norm.
Here’s a nice article about it from MIT: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/can-solar-panels-be-recycled
There's no point in engaging him, he already is moving the goalpost of the discussion however it fits for his opinion.
I mean, we're talking about solar panels that are made of standard materials vs. uranium-enriched fuel rods that have to be stored at least a 100 years in salt mines in the middle of nowhere, without any possibility to recycle them anyhow. Let alone leaving what happens with those power plants after they've been shut down.
The new “fast reactors” are explicitly designed to take spent fuel rods as fuel to lessen the requirement of creating more enriched uranium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTR-PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
If you were referring to a theoretical SMR design, I will believe it after a demonstration unit is built and operating. Most reactor designs never enter industrial use, just like most designs for new kinds of batteries or solar cells.