8 million people die every year because of air pollution, caused mainly by fossil fuels. If only the oil companies were held responsible for those deaths like nuclear power plants are held responsible for the health problems they cause, things would change.

Completely agree regarding the real cost of fossil fuels being wrongly distributed

But surely the solution can’t be to repeat the same mistake for nuclear power?

The point is that nuclear, disasters included, kill fewer people than other energy sources. Nobody is arguing we shouldn't manage nuclear waste. But we should be better informed regarding risk: Radiation vs air pollution - the former is not necessarily worse than the latter

I understand why there are good reasons to prefer nuclear power to fossil fuel-based power. I think nuclear power is too dangerous to be a reasonable replacement. This is more related to the risk of catastrophic failures than the waste problem.

Even the catastrophic failures are "over-hyped" though. Fukushima killed nobody. Even Chernobyl only killed 42 at the event itself. Oil related disasters, hydro power disasters (damns bursting) have killed far more people.

You’re still comparing it to fossil fuel, and it seems to be a case of risks with different impacts and probabilities. The numbers for Chernobyl and Fukushima are debatable, the risk of entire areas becoming depopulated and uninhabitable is pretty much exclusive to nuclear power

And again: Show me the insurance company willing to insure the risk of failure and it might change my mind

There are functioning nuclear plants around, so presumably they exist already. Even if they didn't, our urgent need for a stable fossil fuel replacement should cause governments to provide whatever insurance is needed. Even "old" nuclear tech is better than oil/gas. We need this.

And what's going on with Bill Gates' nuclear initiatives by the way? There are so many newer approaches to nuclear that really should be looked into. Frustrates me to have FUD destroy a real opportunity for positive change in the world.