This is a poor argument, you're comparing nuclear to literally the worst alternative you can think of.
The alternative to building new nuclear plants is not building new coal plants, or keeping existing coal plants in use for longer. It's to take the same money that you could have spent on new nuclear power plants, and to spend them on new power plants of other types. If it's a fossil fuel form in the modern era, that probably means gas (16% of new power generation in the US), not coal (0% of new capacity I believe, rather quickly being retired/converted to natural gas). More likely it means solar (39%) or wind (31%).
But yes, I trust our society to handle coal (and other fossil fuels) more than I trust it to handle nuclear plants, because you can't hide the effects of fossil fuels, but you can hide (and deny) the negative effects of a unsafe nuclear plant until it fails catastrophically.
> you can't hide the effects of fossil fuels, but you can hide (and deny) the negative effects of a unsafe nuclear plant until it fails catastrophically.
What? The subtopic of the thread is climate change. That was hidden from the public eye for over 30 years. We're literally in the situation where fossil fuels have failed catastrophically and now everyone knows about it. Which I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate because a large portion of the population is still denying it.
The alternative to building new nuclear plants is not building new coal plants, or keeping existing coal plants in use for longer. It's to take the same money that you could have spent on new nuclear power plants, and to spend them on new power plants of other types. If it's a fossil fuel form in the modern era, that probably means gas (16% of new power generation in the US), not coal (0% of new capacity I believe, rather quickly being retired/converted to natural gas). More likely it means solar (39%) or wind (31%).
(Source for numbers: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416)
But yes, I trust our society to handle coal (and other fossil fuels) more than I trust it to handle nuclear plants, because you can't hide the effects of fossil fuels, but you can hide (and deny) the negative effects of a unsafe nuclear plant until it fails catastrophically.