Newer reactors don't produce long-lived waste, and for that matter can use the waste from existing reactors as fuel.
So if you don't like the nuclear waste we already have, build newer reactors to get rid of it.
So if you don't like the nuclear waste we already have, build newer reactors to get rid of it.
We are now getting China and France to build our new nuclear, having successfully driven our own industry into the ground by lying to our customers.
edit - what worries me about nuclear power is the attitude and practices of the industry, not the technology per-se. The only group I have ever heard of that comes up to scratch for how you would want nuclear plants to be run is the US Navy, though that might be because they live on them.
(Technically an exception is the bn-800 but it was modified rebuild from an 80s aborted reactor construction project, to get rid of weapons grade plutonium, before the the us/russia treaty fell apart... Good story at http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-reactor-a-milestone-on... )
Not really, what happened is there were "good enough" designs, there was a China Syndrome inspired move away from nuclear, and the government had little to no interest in reactor designs that made it hard to recover weapon materials.
Bill Gates is championing both molten salt and traveling wave reactors that "burn" nuclear waste.
There are other very interesting designs, including the Xscale helium-cooled pebble bed design. It, and many of the molten salt designs, don't require water cooling. Not needing a source of nearby water vastly expands siting options.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/x-energy-developing-pebbl...
Another interesting design is ThorCon's molten salt reactor, which it recommends siting 100 feet underground, eliminating almost all security issues including plane strike.
The subsidies have been in the form of the MOX program, PRISM, and other gov funded fuel recycling programs in many countries. The problems remain: weapons grade Pu profileration risk, unviable cost, dearth of demonstrated working large plants due to technical difficulties inherent in the designs, difficulties scaling up to commercial sizes competitive w traditional designs.
Yes, there are many interesting designs on the drawing table, same as it has been for decades...