Do you think we evolved fear by accident? If I were handling a venomous snake I'd be scared to be bit and rightly so. There's no reason to be proud of being heedless of risk.
And what if it was a non-venomous snake, and all the experts tell you it is a non-venomous snake, and it is literally safer than a pet dog. Would you still be scared of handling it because of a pathological fear of snakes? In what way is that adaptive and helpful in a modern era of scientific knowledge?
Well, the setup was you told me people should feel embarrassed to be scared whether or not they support nuclear power. If they accepted the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free — why wouldn’t they support it?
> the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free
That is a fairly egregious misrepresentation of what was said. And it completely misses the point of the (rather good) analogy.
Economies need energy. The only question that matters is whether a proposed source is overall better or worse — per unit of energy — than the status quo or the fallback. Remember, the choice isn’t nuclear power or no nuclear power. The choice is to utilise nuclear power or continue burning coal/oil/gas.
How was I meant to interpret “a non-venomous snake, literally safer than a pet dog” as an analogy if it didn’t mean that nuclear power was extremely safe?
Nuclear power is "extremely safe. It is arguably the safest form of energy we have, unarguably one of the safest and unarguable the safest reliable form of energy.
