Solar and wind are reliable and economic in many parts of the world, but much less so in many parts of the world that already have very high population density.

Solar and wind are reliable and economic in many parts of the world, but much less so in many parts of the world that already have very high population density. “Move everyone to a different part of the world” is an even less tractable approach than “figure out how to handle nuclear’s downsides”. On top of that, while reliable and cheap renewables are “nearish future”, fusion tech is potentially not much less “nearish”, and would enable people to go back to living in Northern Europe, America, Asia, etc. Note: I’m not trying to espouse or argue for a particular approach here; I’d trying to suggest some reasons why there might be so much (and such long-lived) “fawning over [nuclear] technology”. This is just some mildly educated guessing on my part.