This is only something I know from watching docmentiries so if you know more on the lifecycle of waste in the US please let me know how much of this is true.
The end result is expected to be waste with a half life of around 100 years. This means a feasible option is to just stick it in a warehouse for 300 years. The danger isn’t proximity to the waste, a concrete container is plenty, the danger is a 100,000 year half life meaning we need to solve for geological time scales. With modern reactors that will no longer be the case.
We’re not quite there yet, but research was getting there until much investment stopped in the last 10 years due to public dislike of nuclear power. Renewables are doing really well in some countries now which is great, but I do think this would be a good, feasible, safe backup plan.
Investment stopped because giant monolith plants are difficult build and operate profitably. You need to find a way for private companies to be able to afford construction and operation themselves. It should also be economical to shut down reactors that have critical design flaws, botched maintenance or simply don't follow modern regulations.
I personally can't believe that people still use "public dislike of nuclear power" as the main argument why nuclear power failed. If it were that simple then some "evil corporation" would find a way to keep operating nuclear plants the same way we are stuck with coal. What you really need to do is discover an existing nuclear technology that is safe, economical and so attractive that people want to get rid of their old nuclear reactors and replace them with the new model.
They are highly profitable, they just require long-term investment to be profitable. They typically won't turn a profit for 10-20 years, but on a lifetime of 40-50 years that should be acceptable.
> I personally can't believe that people still use "public dislike of nuclear power" as the main argument why nuclear power failed.
I'm not trying to call it a conspiracy. It's well known that most early anti-nuclear-power activism was from anti-nuclear-weapons proponents. It's also clear that several big economies rolled back nuclear power investment directly due to the public perception of what happened at Fukushima. Germany was the best example of this.
>The project was approved in 2002 by the 107th United States Congress, but federal funding for the site ended in 2011 under the Obama Administration via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011