Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

There is a bad stigma associated with nuclear energy that I just don’t understand - Nuclear less impact to the environment when compared to other energy sources. What is is the problem with nuclear? Is it the cost of maintaining these power plants ?

The average lay person knows "radiation is bad" and that Chernobyl blew up. That'll be about it.

People will be genuinely surprised when you tell them it's usually the same old mechanism of most other power plants - heat boils water, which generates steam, which powers a turbine. They're also really surprised to find out a coal plant puts out more radioactivity.

Same phenomenon as vaccines - people know very little about the mechanism, but have very strong opinions anyways.

There is a pretty important difference though.

Vaccine is and should be a matter of personal/parent choice, because getting the vaccine is a per-person action and its benefits and risks concern only their health, not health of other people. The benefit/cost analysis is very different for different people, for some it is in favour of getting the vaccine, for some it is against. Vaccination program can and should respect individual peoples' wishes.

While building more nuclear energy is a strategic country-scale decision that cannot respect all people wishes, only the majority's.

> getting the vaccine is a per-person action and its benefits and risks concern only their health, not health of other people

This is definitively not true.