I guess the other consideration (over and above the normal radioactive 'waste' produced by normal running) is the effect of nuclear accidents - after Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three mile island and the Windscale fire the public probably aren't going to be easily convinced that the risks are negligible or containable, especially on a small crowded island such as ours.

Worse still perhaps is the possibility of  hostile players attacking such facilities to use them as weapons against us (the likelihood then of any safety systems being damaged or destroyed at the same time as containment being compromised). We've already seen damage to the Zaporizhzhia plant and there are credible threats to Iran's nuclear facilities. It's still within living memory that such attacks were frequently made on our soil - how certain can we be that such things can't recur?

Such problems aren't unique to nuclear of course - we've had Buncefield and the Pembroke Dock refinery explosions with conventional fuels - but the effects do tend to be far less widespread and less long lasting to the public in general.

  - Andy.

The ‘severity’ of a nuclear accident depends on the actual health risks from radiation. Until these are realistically defined and the scare mongering is stopped the perception of nuclear accidents will always be bad. None of the ‘major’ nuclear accidents have actually resulted in many deaths from radiation, far more deaths were caused by the unnecessary evacuations. The WHO suggests maybe 4000 deaths in total from radiation exposure due to Chenobyl.

https://www.who.int/news/item/05-09-2005-chernobyl-the-true-scale-of-the-accident

 What is the equivalent death rate per TWh from the alternative energy sources?

The ‘severity’ of a nuclear accident depends on the actual health risks from radiation. Until these are realistically defined and the scare mongering is stopped the perception of nuclear accidents will always be bad. None of the ‘major’ nuclear accidents have actually resulted in many deaths from radiation, far more deaths were caused by the unnecessary evacuations. The WHO suggests maybe 4000 deaths in total from radiation exposure due to Chenobyl.

https://www.who.int/news/item/05-09-2005-chernobyl-the-true-scale-of-the-accident

 What is the equivalent death rate per TWh from the alternative energy sources?

So do we waste tax payers money on unnecessary civil works or tell the truth by admitting that existing requirements are totally over the top.  

Spreading fake information  to panic politicians over the internet should or has be banned