>It's absurd. Coal is guaranteed to have costly negative health and environmental impacts on surrounding areas, while nuclear merely has the risk.

Yes, but it has a much larger risk: the risk of tens or hundred of thousands of people getting radiation poisoning, and the region becoming inhabitable for years.

Plus it creates nuclear waste, that is not mere pollution, but extremely toxic for thousands or years. Not to mention the consequences to be had with a nuclear plant in the hands of the wrong people (terrorists and such). With a coal plant, not that many...