It's expensive, that's why. You are wrongly assuming public fear and safety have anything to do with this. It's cost. These reactors are approaching their end of life. Keeping them going requires lots of investments. The return on those investments is poor. So, private investors are not really interested. If it had a decent ROI, they'd be all over it. But there just isn't. These are old, expensive plants.

The article is a bit light on numbers and facts, unfortunately. Hard to tell if this is a serious study or paid "study" by some lobby with an agenda. I suspect the latter. It certainly seems to be very selective in what it talks about. And it would explain the hand waviness of the reported "findings".

It kind of makes a big point of avoiding talking about investments in renewables because "In 1985, the closure of reactors in Tennessee Valley prompted a spike in coal use". That's nearly four decades ago. Most of those coal plants have probably been closed by now. And conveniently, wind and solar investments were not a thing at the time.