Will we ever stop using fossil fuels?

Obviously man-qualified rockets are expensive because of all the amenities required for comfort and return trip necessary when dealing with humans.

No, they are expensive just to raise them to the 99.9999% reliability level. The "amenities" are all provided by the spacecraft.

Take that same, very dependable rocket and make a one way freight ship out of it and the price will plummet.

Rockets will never be commodity items. Just the propellant and oxidizer for the payloads currently launched costs way more than the storage containers and management of waste containers.

The nuclear material is hauled in fairly safe containers, and there is no reason whatsoever that they could not be launched into oblivion.

Those containers are way heavier than normal payloads that require really expensive rockets and propellants. Those containers might not crack open with any train derailment; however, they would certainly crack open if one should fall from 200,000 feet.

The alternate to a man-safe rocket is something like the Delta. Those peckers blow up all of the time, usually taking billion dollar satellites with them when they do so. A man-quality rocket cannot be justified even for a billion dollar DOD payload. Delta rockets are way way more expensive than than a ten year supply of storage containers for the entire Nation. The scale of economy is just not right, nor will it ever be, for your dream idea. Really smart people have been through all of this before.

I decided to look up the costs for space disposal of nuclear waste:

Delta IV cost per launch: $375 million.
Maximum payload: 31,250 lbs (6 tones)
Launch altitude: Geosynchronous orbit

Cost for storage container: $1.6 million
Weight of waste material: 12 tons

Remember that the rocket would cost a great deal more in order to provide boost to the sun. Also, please note that the rocket can dispose of only half of the container's material, making the equivalent cost well above $750 million as compared to $1.6 million.

Rockets are a lot more unreliable than a freight train or a barge, even man-qualified versions. Something falling from a near orbit is going to break open, vaporizing in the process. No such risk is incurred when these things travel by train.

31,250 lbs is closer to 15 tones than 6. We are not speaking about the past, we are looking forward. Rockets, in the future will be like trucks of the present. Someday, shortly, they will be able to launch from Earth, take their cargo for out in space, propel it toward the sun, and return to Earth for another load.

You mentioned a large cargo, in this day and age, plunging back to Earth causing a catastrophe...if precautions were properly taken, any failure would occur over the vast majority of the planet covered by oceans and nothing would happen. There is, somewhere under an ocean, a thermonuclear bomb lost from an American plane.....worried?????

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