For me, this type of reasoning goes out the window when the way someone makes their living is actively hurting millions of people. I'm not quite callous, I think we should help them transition to a new line of work, of course, but don't expect me to have a whole lot of sympathy for people who actively poison the air for a living. Their line of work is literally killing people. Nuclear power is not so expensive. Especially for westerners.

We got rid of coal power where I live:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal

It can be done and the stakes here are too high for this handwringing. We didn't let slave ship workers stop emancipation from happening.