Have you ever been near a coal ash pond? You probably haven't because it is an extreme health hazard to get anywhere near it, as it is full of mercury, arsenic, heavy metals and occasionally radioactive slurry.
There about a thousand of these ponds in the US alone totaling maybe 100,000 acres. Meanwhile all the nuclear power plant waste ever produced could fit into a single large hangar...
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 1,000 square miles. Fukushima had a much smaller exclusion zone but Estimates of radioactivity released ranged from 10–40%[163][164][165][166] of that of Chernobyl. The significantly contaminated area was 10[163]-12%[164] of that of Chernobyl.[163][167][168]
On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants. That’s the core issue not physics.* ... A 2008 in-house study identified an immediate need to better protect the facility from flooding by seawater. This study mentioned the possibility of tsunami-waves up to 10.2 meters (33 ft). Headquarters officials insisted that such a risk was unrealistic and did not take the prediction seriously. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned of a risk of losing emergency power in 1991 (NUREG-1150) and NISA referred to that report in 2004, but took no action to mitigate the risk.[149] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
France and the US have a solid nuclear track record, but so did Japan.
That’s a significant percentage of total reactors ever built including what was considered a safe design. We could go 1000 years without another incident, but from an insurance standpoint what would you charge a new power plant next to NYC? That means you need them in an a less expensive area, but everyone feels their area is valuable. That causes vast NIMBY issues and heavy regulation.
In theory modern Nuclear should cost less and be both clean and safe, but people gonna people both inside and outside the industry.