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I think a lot of it was driven by the Chernobyl disaster, which was a massive environmental and health catastrophe. But plants today are vastly safer than Chernobyl due to better design and processes, which I think anti-nuclear people haven't realized.

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> But plants today are vastly safer than Chernobyl due to better design and processes, which I think anti-nuclear people haven't realized.

Even other plants built in the same timeframe as Chernobyl are safer (not even getting to newer designs/builds), because in the West they were built with containment.

The founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank isn't anti-nuclear:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas

* https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-...

The environmentalist hatred for nukes long predates Chernobyl (if anything Chernobyl was an environmental boon by driving humans out of the zone). It started as a justified disapproval of nuclear tests (especially open air) and military nuclear, but then nuclear militaries made sone pointed remarks about the health and safety of a few beatniks going against the military-industrial complex, oil companies started fl funding groups, and voila civilian nukes are an environmental problem.

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