[dTal]

I think it was mostly a failure of human psychology. The over-regulation was simply a manifestation of that - democracy working perfectly.

Blunder 1: war. We dropped a nuclear bomb before we ever made a nuclear power plant. Nuclear became inextricably linked with sickness and death instead of power and prosperity.

Blunder 2: broken heuristic risk assessment. Radiation is scary because it's "spooky" - it's undetectable, and it kills you in a nasty, body-horror kind of way - a long time after exposure. (Although many environmental toxins also fit this bill and aren't so "spooky", so I'm not sure what's going on there). Fossil fuels just aren't "spooky" in the same way, even though the numbers show them as far more dangerous. Chernobyl is enough to put people off nuclear entirely, but even a hundred Chernobyls would not be as bad as the environmental damage wrought by the carbon industry. A bold claim? We're in the middle of a global mass extinction. A hundred Chernobyls wouldn't be a blip in Earth's biodiversity. Even Chernobyl itself is practically a wildlife sanctuary now.

Blunder 3: Status quo bias. Sure, fossil fuels are terrible in many ways. But better the devil you know!

[II2II]

For the general population, nuclear energy may be spooky. On the other hand, some opponents of nuclear energy are well informed. Claiming that their risk assessment is broken does not help the discussion because chances are that they are assessing different risks and they are looking towards different solutions.

From what I have seen, nuclear has earned a negative reputation from far more than its association with weapons and disasters. Many supporters of nuclear also overly enthusiastic in presenting it as the solution rather than as a solution. It makes it sound like the issues with nuclear are being glossed over, or outright ignored. This, in turn, makes supporters of nuclear sound ill informed or as though they have a vested interest.

If nuclear power is going to have much hope for adoption, people need to be informed of how it works, what the risk factors are (preferably with other forms of power generation being used as context), and what is being done to address those risks. Even then, there is going to be some opposition because different people will view different risks differently.

[sp332]

Not sure I agree with #1. Nuclear power had a super utopian vibe going for a good couple of decades. Nuclear power plant orders only started to decline in the early 70's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Age

[dTal]

I don't think you can entirely discount the effects of 20 years of Cold War existential threat, accompanied by duck-and-cover videos and the like. People were terrified and fascinated by nuclear technology - this is the era of Godzilla, and of mutant superheroes. Yes, there was a utopian vibe as well, courtesy of a concerted propaganda campaign [1] - but when the eco-movement kicked off in the 70s, nuclear was right in the firing line. That didn't spring from nowhere - it was decades of accumulated fear finding an expression.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoms_for_Peace