Coal was filthy but very cheap. Not as cheap as the sunlight that made it, but cheap.
Uranium isn't cheap. Sunlight (=> wind) is free. Safe nuclear plants (hypothetically) are very, very expensive. (And have to be shut down regularly for weeks for servicing.) Nukes are much, much more expensive than windmills ($10B/GW vs $1B) and solar panels (which retain 93% efficiency after 20+ years). Then there's safe storage of dangerous waste vs. little (non-dangerus) waste.
Sure, windmills may cost less to build (debatable) but what is the total cost of intermittent production, decimated bird and bat populations, defaced landscape and stunted technological progress?
If sun and wind are "free", so is nuclear, so is coal. It's the getting them to be useful that's costly.
Uranium isn't cheap. Sunlight (=> wind) is free. Safe nuclear plants (hypothetically) are very, very expensive. (And have to be shut down regularly for weeks for servicing.) Nukes are much, much more expensive than windmills ($10B/GW vs $1B) and solar panels (which retain 93% efficiency after 20+ years). Then there's safe storage of dangerous waste vs. little (non-dangerus) waste.