Define ‘waste’. Depending on the plant design, a good chunk of the cooling is achieved by evaporating cooling water into the atmosphere. That could be waste.

Does the air blown through a wind turbine count as waste going into the atmosphere? Same for hydro going downriver?

I’m going to call this a stupid argument: we treat waste with the level of care the waste deserves, CO2 notwithstanding (and carbon capture being junk). Nuclear is expensive partly because its waste actually needs to be dealt with carefully.