Buddy...

For a lot of this large scale shit, it's easier to get it to somewhere in Alaska close to a port than the middle of small town America and definitely in residential areas of major metro areas.

They prefer small towns adjacent to major metros because thats where the bribes are cheapest for tax breaks and property deals.

Again, this is all corrupt capitalism making the decisions. Those decisions won't be good for anyone except the people paying for them or getting paid to make them.

That's why it's "cheap" if we enforced regulations and zoning, it wouldn't even be an option.

Like, arguing that gas is cheaper than an EV, but you only care about price at pump and not all the gas subsidizes we have to pay because of fossil fuel lobbyists.

Gas is "cheaper" but only because oligarchs are making it the cheapest option.

We can just make environmentally prudent decisions the cheapest via regulations.

That's literally the point of environmental regulations and why Cleveland hasnt had any rivers catch fire in almost 60 years. It would be "cheaper" to handle industrial waste like that again if it wasn't for regulations.