That's never been the case, as anyone who lived at the time of the early protests can tell you (or anyone who's parents did). Even Wikipedia has a whole section on that topic [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement#Nuclear-...
> stopped more than 150 destructive dams and water projects worldwide
While I empathize with the desire to preserve waterways, you can be sure that for each one of these dams that didn't get built a coal or gas plant didn't shutdown.
Coal was the inevitable base load power source given a lack of alternatives. If you focus on limiting nuclear with far greater zeal than coal, this is the result.
See: perfect is the enemy of good.
Without nuclear we are not getting off of fossil fuels - period.