Normally the tech would recapture it, and it is worth something. It must have been a pretty dramatic failure for the coolant to leak from a power surge.
That said, ‘reduce, reuse’ comes before ‘recycle’ for a reason. If the unit still worked and was reasonably close efficiency wise, it’s just a waste to replace it when it still functions.
It probably caused the power surge. What he describes is a fairly common failure mode. The compressors are hermetically sealed, and the weak point is where the AC is plugged into the compressor casing. As they age they corrode once the plug loses its own environmental seal driving up the capacitance of the junction, or the compressor starts to draw increasing amounts of current to start and run, resulting in the plugs melting. Basically its any number of effects, but the result is that the plug shorts/melts/etc and the compressor loses its seal at the same time.
Generally this kind of failure was a couple hundred dollar fix. Pull the compressor, braze on a new one, flush the system, vacuum it down, and refill.
Only now, the refrigerant can cost a grand, the markup on a $200 Emerson scroll is 4x, the fact that you need a license to work on the system means the tech charges $200 an hour, and it all adds up toe selling someone a new system, that is likely going to last 1/2 as long because R410 runs at 2-3x the pressure, the major manufactures have penny pinched every gram of metal out of the condenser/compressor tubing so its as thin as possible, and a half dozen other factors means that the 30 years a good R22 system would run for is unheard of now.
Sounds about right to me, only r-22 refrigerant alone would have been more than two grand $ on its own, let alone labor, parts, or other services. (And prices they quoted per lb were in line with other HVAC places in town.)
Definitely the cost of replacement coolant was a big driver of how things played out (in concert with system age).
That said, ‘reduce, reuse’ comes before ‘recycle’ for a reason. If the unit still worked and was reasonably close efficiency wise, it’s just a waste to replace it when it still functions.