It’s more like cold numbers won’t beat lobbying. It’s not “if we moved to coal”. It’s “coal definitely killed more people than Chernobyl every few months for the last 100 years and is now literally burning the planet down, but somehow that’s OK.”
Yes, and that being OK is the magic of how emotions work! That's the exact valid point being ignored.
If you don't have a better response to a catastrophic nuclear disaster than "well, it killed people but coal definitely killed more people over time," then as the commenter said, you really don't have a satisfactory political response [1] to a nuclear disaster.
You're acknowledging the difference in our emotional response between gradual deaths over time versus a nuclear accident, but then hand-waving it away as irrational and unworthy of response, and ignoring that those irrational people form the majority of voters in the country.
[1] A satisfactory political response is one that will keep public opinion positive towards nuclear energy after a disaster.
