Rivers are a bad idea because they change course, get dredged, dammed, etc. Into the ocean is best, preferably somewhere deep and remote (simply to reduce the risk of people messing with it.) Deep trenches that would fuck with fish nets anyway are a good place for it.

Sure, but who defines "remote"? We've explored a small percentage of the ocean [1] and most of the places we have explored we've been surprised to find life. In fact NOAA estimates that 91% of species in the ocean have yet to be classified [2]. We'd be dumping what is basically a forever chemical into places that we don't understand.

If we can't responsibly keep track of the waste we're producing then we shouldn't produce it. I'm pro-nuclear, and I think we can do it, but we need to be the kind of civilization that can plan beyond the next quarter first.

[1] https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/ocean-exploration/, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/exploration.html

[2] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-species.html

Also, there’s the Godzilla factor you’d need to consider. It’s cheap to dump radioactive material near a deep-ocean vent until something decides to grow and destroys Tokyo. Again.

Now, seriously, screwing with ecosystems we know nothing about is a very bad idea, even if for no other reason than we being unable to study them after we turn them into radioactive deserts.

Regulations don’t change the cost that much. Yes, you can save money by not having a containment vessel around your nuclear reactor but that’s a major risk which has inherent costs. On net it’s cheaper to have that containment than not irregardless of regulations.

Dig into the rising costs, and you find root causes like 3 mile island showing the industry it needed to increase maintenance spending. It wasn’t some arbitrary overreaction but simply the damage accumulated enough to cost a billion+ dollar asset. Thus much of that “increased” spending is simply asset preservation.

Most of the regulations nuclear proponents want relaxed are around plant construction, not waste disposal. The older generations of western nuclear plants have a strong track record. The justification for regulation need to be weighted against the damage of continued carbon emissions due to higher plant costs.