Nuclear power is indeed quite cheap, especially if the operators have to pay neither insurance nor damages for the potentially catastrophic consequences of accidents. And most operators have totally understated/underestimated the cost of demolishing plants at the end of their lifetime.
In Germany in particular, the biggest actual problem would be waste storage. We just don't really know were to put it, and even if we knew we couldn't agree where.
So, in the meantime, until we know with absolute certainty what to do with it (so please no pie-in-the sky reclamation ideas or unproven reactor types nobody can build commercially), I prefer not piling up more of that stuff.
Compared to the CO2 from burning coal, which we know what it does and we also don't have a great solution for, and the fact that mining coal is also dangerous/not risk free?
I'd also love an ideal world without nuclear or fossil fuels, but that doesn't make it real.
That comparison is useless and misleading. It's still a fact that people don't want radioactive waste stored in their vicinity, and in democratic countries they can and will prevent such storage indefinitely. And who can really blame them? The stuff is undeniably lethal and scary.
There seems to be a majority of people who don't really trust a theoretical, probabilistic safety when the downside risk is this catastrophic. And on top of that, lots of "impossible" accidents have happened, further eroding public trust in theoretical safety.
Yup. Fuels + coals are directly killing a few millions per year because the storage is the atmosphere. There is no green source of energy, but some sources (hydro, nuclear, renewables) are several orders of magnitude more letals than other sources, whereas some sources are several orders of magnitude cheaper than renewable energies
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents)
In Germany in particular, the biggest actual problem would be waste storage. We just don't really know were to put it, and even if we knew we couldn't agree where.
So, in the meantime, until we know with absolute certainty what to do with it (so please no pie-in-the sky reclamation ideas or unproven reactor types nobody can build commercially), I prefer not piling up more of that stuff.