> enabling it to actually be finished before it can be defunded or protested out of existence.
Except, both of these things have already occurred:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal#America...
Nonetheless, they still have the potential to be an easier to implement disposal solution because they're faster/cheaper to create than a massive project.
I expect it'll still be necessary to put the hole somewhere there aren't hundreds of people protesting oil pipelines, but that's a topic for the future.
I heard of a place waaaaaay out in the woods - very few people lived in the area - near the Canadian Shield. One day some some Unidentifed People with serious machinery started drilling a hole. After several days, they went home for the weekend. When they came back, the hole had been filled in.
This re-occured a couple more times. The UP never returned.
A) It's cheaper than building a Yucca Mountain
B) It can be built faster than Yucca Mountain, enabling it to actually be finished before it can be defunded or protested out of existence.
Most power generating reactors don't generate much waste relatively speaking... the bulk of the waste that exists is from nuclear weapons. So there's a need for waste disposal, but it's not as bad a problem as many people seem to think.
On top of that, newer reactor designs produce less waste, so in the future there may be even less of a need.