When nuclear reactors leak poison gas then something has gone wrong, and it makes international headlines.
Diesel generators are designed to leak poison gas; hundreds of millions of them do this every day.
I see your point, any nuclear excursion tends to get blown out of proportion, but it does have some unique dangers.
In particular, diesel fumes eventually dissipate, whereas radioactive materials will settle and continue to be a problem for decades. Which may not be a problem if it's left alone, but anyone unlucky enough to interact with it could end up with it on their body/clothing unaware that they're absorbing an unsafe dose over a period of days or weeks.
But yes, I agree, we do need to move away from fossil fuel sources one way or another.
Meanwhile, radioactive toxic stuff will remain toxic locally.
Sure you can, you just need to agree on the comparison criteria, like, for example, the total number of illnesses/death from normal (and predicted abnormal) operation of the device. Burning fossil fuels still leads to deaths even if they are spread over a large area and/or time.
I've previously worked on a nuclear licenced site and we were not even allowed to throw smoke alarms in the general rubbish due to there being radioactive material inside.
My concerns are solely with how fuel would be managed, so that it isn't lost, and subsequently broken. One example was scrap workers taking a radioactive source to a scrap yard to be melted down, not realizing what it was.