Past history is a bad indicator for future risk when the costs are so high.
And the reason why there were so few fatalities was because huge chunks of land have been evacuated every time and costly cleanup operations have been undertaken. The risk is not just lives lost, but rather the impact on those countries' economy.
Only if you believe the official numbers about Chernobyl, which are worthless. The Soviet Union and later Russia was not being transparent.
> The safety argument isn't based on numbers, but on fear.
Very well-founded fear, based on how bad nuclear accidents can be, how bad people suck at adhering to safety protocols when there haven't been accidents for a long time, and the possibility of such accidents even being caused intentionally.
How many people do you think have died from nuclear reactor accidents the last century? I ask because they're shockingly few.
In fact more people have died from radiation from coal plants than from nuclear plants.
The safety argument isn't based on numbers, but on fear.