The fears from 3 Mile Island and Fukushima were almost completely irrational. The death toll from those was too low to measure.
And the fears from Chernobyl was MOSTLY irrational.
The reason for the extreme fears that are generated from even very moderate spills from nuclear plants comes in part from the association with nuclear bombs and in part from fear of the unknown.
A lot (if not most) people shut their rational thinking off when the word "nuclear" is used, even those who SHOULD understand that a lot more people die from coal and gas plants EVERY YEAR than have died from nuclear energy throughout history.
Indeed, the safety level at Chernobyl may have been atrocious. But so was the coal industry in the USSR. Indeed, even if just considering the USSR, the death toll from coal alone caused a similar number of deaths (or a bit more) than the deaths caused by Chernobyl EVERY YEAR [1].
I think you're underselling it - the atrocious safety level at Chernobyl appears to still be an improvement on the coal industry held to a high standard. It is a horrible irony that the environmentalist movement managed to do such incredible damage to the environment by their enthusiastic attacks on nuclear.
And the fears from Chernobyl was MOSTLY irrational.
The reason for the extreme fears that are generated from even very moderate spills from nuclear plants comes in part from the association with nuclear bombs and in part from fear of the unknown.
A lot (if not most) people shut their rational thinking off when the word "nuclear" is used, even those who SHOULD understand that a lot more people die from coal and gas plants EVERY YEAR than have died from nuclear energy throughout history.
Indeed, the safety level at Chernobyl may have been atrocious. But so was the coal industry in the USSR. Indeed, even if just considering the USSR, the death toll from coal alone caused a similar number of deaths (or a bit more) than the deaths caused by Chernobyl EVERY YEAR [1].
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.238.4823.11....