The nuclear fuel cycle is exponentially less ecologically expensive than the fossil fuel cycle -- and it hasn't even been remotely optimized to the extent that it can be.

Nuclear fission is millions of times more efficient than any of the nearest energy sources when considering purely energy density. That efficiency compared to the cost and ecological danger is barely even tapped at this point, because it blows everything else out of the water by orders of magnitude.

The nuclear fuel cycle is economically expensive, not ecologically nor physically. And it is economically expensive because we are all slaves to the fossil fuel industry, who own nearly everything.

Why would slavers / masters living in luxury sacrifice everything so that their slaves would flourish instead? Answer: they wouldn't. Instead, everything would be rigged in their favor. Their most powerful opposition would be made to seem weaker than them.