A lot of those communities were not well informed.
(Think copper-based NBN for how technically illiterate a lot of communities can be in the face of propaganda - we see it every day now)
Next - you and I both know that the communities vote. they now know about Chernobyl, Fukishima and the old 1960's "World of the future "rhetoric doesn't work so well when it is their electorate that is getting the nuclear reactor built to LNP standards... Suddenly the politics of it is made clear.
We know that you know that putting a sewage farm into a nice suburb LNP suburb is never gonna happen - imagine an entire STATE getting upset over being designated the nuclear ground zero?
I know how safe a nuclear reactor can be made (brilliant little changes like the japanses golf ball model is true fail safe) But even people who feel scared of nuclear power do not dispute that fossil fuels are orders of magnitude more dangerous.
One study, published in 2021, estimated that air pollution from fossil fuels killed about 1 million people in 2017 alone. In fact, nuclear power’s safety record to date is easily on par with the wind and solar industries, because wind turbines and rooftop panels create minor risks such as falls and fire. As for nuclear waste, it has turned out to be a surprisingly manageable problem, partly because there isn’t much of it; all of the spent fuel the U.S. nuclear industry has ever created could be buried under a single football field to a depth of less than 10 yards, according to the Department of Energy.
Unlike coal waste, which is of course spewed into the air we breathe, radioactive waste is stored in carefully monitored casks.
I just don't trust the LNP or private enterprise to build an Australian reactor in my lifetime... if ever.
