Nuclear waste materials aren't hard to dispose of, they just have extremely high abuse potential. That's why they have to be safely stored for million years away from civilization, so that they cannot be dug up by current and future terrorists.

I think there was some ex-French colony government that demanded France disclose details of nuclear waste burial sites for "safety" reasons, which France rejected. Which means it happens. That kind of thing is why nuclear wastes are supposedly and actually so "dangerous" and small private owned generators get "complicated".

Yeah, Nuclear is one of those solutions where in an ideal world it makes sense, but in the real world it is just too complex all around make it work.

It's not like solar panels don't use raw materials.

It's from 2022, so probably outdated.

> According to the US Department of Energy (DOE), about 12% of all silicon metal produced worldwide (also known as “metallurgical-grade silicon” or MGS) is turned into polysilicon for solar panel production. China produces about 70% of the world’s MGS and 77% of the world’s polysilicon. Converting silicon to polysilicon requires very high temperatures, and in China it’s coal that largely fuels these plants. Xinjiang—a region in China of abundant coal and low electricity prices—produces 45% of the world’s polysilicon.

> Reports indicate that some Xinjiang polysilicon plants have employed forced labor of Uyghurs, an intensely persecuted Muslim ethnic minority.

[0] https://blog.ucs.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-for-...