> 100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.

So?

You have to look at the amount of chemicals required to produce 1 Joule (or perhaps to install one 1 Watt of capacity).

For example, 1 kg of coal is much less dangerous than 1 kg of uranium. But you need much, much more than 1kg of coal to replace 1 kg of uranium.

Similar for solar power: you need to normalise the amount (and 'badness') of waste by the amount of energy produced. Semi-conductor manufacturing isn't exactly like organic farming, you know?

The best example is perhaps hydro-power: 1 kg of fresh water is basically the most harmless substance you can think of. But you need enormous amounts of water to produce reasonable amounts of electricity. And in these huge quantities water can become dangerous.

> > You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.

> So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?

Huh? Fukushima was not a normally operating nuclear power plant. Yes, accidents happen. That's why I'm suggesting to look at the impact of accidents per Joule produced (or per Watt of installed capacity, depending on context).

Nuclear power has had only a handful of accidents and lots and lots of Joule produced.