Nuclear is expensive because when particulate pollution kills millions of people every year, nobody cares at all. But when a nuclear accident kills exactly zero people, we get massive levels of hysteria and shut down a dozen nuclear power plants on the other side of the planet.
Imagine the reaction if there was a single nuclear disaster that killed 9 million people. According to greenpeace that’d be 9 chernobyls, but more likely it would be between 100 and 1000 chernobyls. Do you think people might be a bit upset about that? But with fossil fuels that is now happening every single year, and it’s probably just going to get worse. (CO2 emissions are just getting higher every year despite all the growth in renewables) And you get a few news headlines about it and then everyone forgets. Weirdly enough climate change caused by the same fossil fuels gets far more attention, even though those effects are even harder for the average person to understand.
And even with this level of paranoia about nuclear, with the incredible level of security put in with gen 3 reactors that directly contribute to the massive cost and time overruns, we still have these “nuclear is not safe enough” claims flying around.