The WHO did a massive study[0] and actually found nuclear killed far fewer people per watt than all others, even solar: Energy Source Death Rate

The WHO did a massive study[0] and actually found nuclear killed far fewer people per watt than all others, even solar: Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh) Coal – world average 161 Coal – China 278 Coal – USA 15 Oil 36 Natural Gas 4 Biofuel/Biomass 12 Peat 12 Solar (rooftop) 0.44 Wind 0.15 Hydro 0.10 Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 Nuclear 0.04 Note that rooftop construction is one of the most dangerous jobs in the US, with high mortality rates from falls.[1] Coal mining is extremely hazardous, it would top this chart even just looking at production. Folding in air pollution deaths from burning coal and you add thousands of deaths per day.[2] Each year coal and oil kill more people than the entire 60 year history of nuclear, including every nuclear disaster. Even if we focus on worst case scenarios, nuclear is safer. The impact of Chernobyl is wildly overestimated by the public.[3] For hydro, let's just note that a dam failure in Banqiao killed 171,000. The highest death estimates for Chernobyl (and this is including expected early deaths from radiation exposure that still haven't appeared a few decades after the incident) and you're looking at maybe 4,000. You could add a Chernobyl every year, even take the most aggressive estimates for early deaths caused by that accident, then ignore all air pollution deaths, and coal and oil would still be more dangerous. They're just that insanely deadly an industry. Nuclear's worst case is safer than coal and oil's average. On cost I think you're mistaken too, nuclear remaining an incredibly cheap source of power per watt, but power economics are complicated and that'd take another discussion. All I can say is that this was the standard wisdom of everyone I knew who worked in the energy industry, despite occasional scare stories in magazines about how the "true" cost of nuclear is disguised by subsidies - the math doesn't quite add up.[4] [0] Energy deathprints: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener... [1] http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf [2] Studies on air pollution deaths (spoiler: among the leading contributing factors to mortality worldwide): http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61766-8/fulltext http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67... ; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature15371.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature1... [3] An overview of the actual mortality impact of Chernobyl found it responsible for a few dozen deaths in emergency workers (fewer than 50, and some of those dying 20 years after the accident). It might be possible to eventually tie a few thousand early deaths to the incident, but we're still waiting, decades after it happened. In general, radiation hazards were widely exaggerated. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ [4] Admittedly biased source, but it runs a few publically available numbers, even nuclear projects with cost overruns look better than some renewable projects: http://nuclearradiophobia.blogspot.com/p/cost-of-nuclear-power.html http://nuclearradiophobia.blogspot.com/p/cost-of-nuclear-pow... I mean, ideally you get a mix of both sources, because they serve different purposes on the grid, but your bursty diurnal power isn't meant to serve as your cheap main source of power.