I have a tinfoil hat theory that all of this environmental and safety regulation was amplified heavily by lobbying and/or propaganda efforts from the coal companies. On one hand, you can make the argument that nuclear fuel was the new silent invisible killer on the block (as opposed to coal mining and emissions which were known, but accepted since it had been around for decades) But when I read stuff like this, it seems as if regulation was heavily disproportionately applied to nuclear energy even despite it being a new and unfamiliar danger. Or maybe the coal industry simply was more successful at curbing regulation. After all, it was was a more mature industry financially and politically.

My theory might be speculative and totally off the mark. But when you compare deaths per TWh of energy produced, coal is responsible for almost 3 orders of magnitude more deaths than nuclear. So maybe the real question is "how has coal power stayed so cheap?" or "if we tried to make coal power as safe as nuclear, what would it cost?"