People are somewhat irrational in nature and fear rare, but spectacular events more than the mundane. This is the number one problem with nuclear that I see it:

People are somewhat irrational in nature and fear rare, but spectacular events more than the mundane. This is the number one problem with nuclear that I see it: no other power source has had anything on the scale of Chernobyl. The only thing that I think offhand could come close as far as potential deaths is a hydro dam collapse. The reality is, we are all human, the world loves to throw unexpected surprises at us (such as the tsunami that helped cause Fukushima). So a Level 7 event is always a small probability. Even if it is much less of a probability than fossil electricity accidents and the issues from pollution overall are worse for fossil fuel, it's a hard sell because of the ways humans are wired. It also doesn't help that the technology is mysterious to a lot of people as you mention. "Flammable material burns, makes energy" is somewhat intuitive to most people. Nuclear is not intuitive at all. Just think at how Hollywood tends to depict nuclear in the popular lore. :) At any rate, my personal reason I think nuclear will never gain much traction in this modern world is that one of those "potential surprises" is terrorism. Nuclear plants are an acknowledged target. So at the very least, you have to add costs to safeguard the structure and really beef up the security around the plant these days. IMHO this would make any big central nuclear power solution quite a bit much less attractive.