They don't cause birth defects and cancer over potentially vast populations.

I thought you were talking about nuclear? You do realize coal plants already cause more cancer than any nuclear disaster has?

Chernobyl could have been a critical world event if the wind was blowing the other direction. Do you not see the potential impact of that?

And yet, even if we assume people remain equally stupid, with really old reactor designs. (Really. A lot went wrong to let the Chernobyl disaster happen) it would still be safer to replace fossil fuel plants with nuclear plants.

People here keep claiming that anti-nuke people don't do their research, but somehow I think the opposite might be true.

And this would be why. You appeal to the human nature to see single catastrophic events as worse than a silent genocide.

Better arguments would be how nuclear is significantly riskier in earthquake zones (Which still need electricity), or how waste storage has to be incredibly secure. (Terrorists building a dirty bomb would be a nightmare), or how robots could massively reduce deaths in chemical plants used for solar panels, making them a safe alternative.