Once you factor in the costs to decommission a nuclear facility, nuclear becomes one of the most expensive options.
What's really, really expensive is building the plant in such a manner that it is both secure and maintainable.
The problem with securing it is that a critical event is so damn expensive (cf. Fukushima) that you need to secure it against all imaginable problems - and as you can imagine, that list is growing over time. And still, you can't buy insurance for a plant. So the government carries the bulk of the risk.
It's not that hard if you avoid greedy power plant owners. TEPCO was repeatedly warned many years ago that they had to build a barrier against tsunamis, and all other plants of the area followed the advice.
Less space: that's true. But you still need a fair bit of space to the nearest city. :)
(But that's an easy target to beat.)
And even assuming those accidents are unavoidable, coal still produces more health problems and deaths.
(I'm also not sure why so many people are playing the nuclear/coal dichotomy when we got into this discussion from wind power and the default backup for renewables is now CCGT?)
Edit: a projected cost breakdown for Hinkley Point C! https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Po... (figure 2)
So fuel is not inconsiderable; 6.2bn "fuel costs", 1.8 "fuel management", 2.6 "fuel disposal". From a total of £54.8 bn.
Add 10-50% to actual construction and decommissioning costs for overruns.