That's not the case at all, nuclear should be how we replace coal. Nuclear is one of the safest way to produce energy today, including the Chernobyl & Fukushima incidents.
Nuclear, because of its energy density, has a big edge against solar and wind as well. AFAIK, building NPPs not only uses less resources and land footprint than wind and solar, they also last longer and are non-intermittent.
In this graph, notice how safe Nuclear is, and also notice that it is cleaner than wind and solar.