> because WE are unsafe

Totally agree, a system is only as safe as it's operators, so it's totally reasonable to compare worst case scenarios.

But if you run the numbers on those terms, that still doesn't fully explain why nuclear is treated so differently.

Extending your point, WE are the ones responsible for coal and hydro safety related deaths too. An unsafe hydro project in China killed somewhere between 80,000 and 240,000 people in 1975 after a whistleblower was ignored.

With coal mining, we don't even have to look at "worst" cases to get to serious issues. Coal production leads US industries in fatal injuries, often leading to litigation alleging unsafe conditions. Miners often suffer permanent scarring of the lung tissues. Coal's output, not unlike radiation, is a silent killer. The fine particulates from coal pollution can cross the blood brain barrier, and lead to 10,000 early deaths in the US from coal's "fallout" each year.[0] Coal ash is also, perhaps unintuitively, MORE radioactive than nuclear waste.[1]

Chernobyl directly killed around 50 people, with higher indirect deaths. The Soviet government compounded the failures by keeping contaminated food in the supply chain, leading to a lot of new thyroid cancers. Even taking that into account, and expelled radiation into the atmosphere, UN estimates of early deaths projected all the way out to 2065 are only around 9,000. Some people put that a bit higher. 15,000 would be a fair estimate.[2]

The UN projection means we could have a Chernobyl disaster every year and it would still be safer than coal. Maybe the estimates wrong and we cut them in half in coal's favor, and should just talk about a Chernobyl disaster every other year comparing more favorably. At that rate, it would take 30 years to equal the deaths due to equal the damage done by one hydro disaster.

Now, I don't think we should judge hydro harshly based on its worst accident in a poorly run communist country. You can choose to do that for nuclear, and it still comes out remarkably safe, even under the worst possible cases.

I absolutely think its fair to judge coal harshly based on its continuing track record, and have no idea why someone would move from nuclear to coal after running the numbers.

> Nuclear will forever be shunned

I fear you might be right. But it definitely feels like some sort of cognitive bias, the availability heuristic or something making nuclear deaths more scary than coal deaths, but I don't know, can't figure it out.

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coal-kills/

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

[2] There's a great discussion of the science behind these estimations on the More or Less podcast. Recommended listening. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07dtfxp

P.S. -

> Potentially "forever" contaminants...

I already droned on long enough, but superfund sites related to coal tar are good reading here. They usually have to entomb the whole site in a giant concrete barrier to never be opened again. We treat radiation like it's the only hazardous thing we need to seal off forever, it's not really accurate, other forms of power generate similar hazards as or more frequently.