The people leading the charge against nuclear aren’t unknowingly helping the fossil fuel industry, they are funded by the fossil fuel industry. Have been since the late sixties / early seventies when oil and gas companies realized that they could very easily commandeer the anti-nuclear-weapon and environmentalist bandwagon. Since then they’ve leveraged fear, of nuclear weapons, radiation and unreliable Soviet reactors, to keep fossil fuels pumping in money.

Currently I think fission energy is the best we have. It’s relatively low pollution, relatively low whole cycle footprint, energy dense, efficient, reliable, and so on. Renewables complement and enhance but cannot replace some form of always on baseload power.

You can also look at the history of civilization based on how energy dense their primary fuel was. Coal and oil unlocked industrial potential for having many times more energy than wood. The nuclear age brought on intriguing thoughts like electricity “too cheap to meter.” Throwing away that very well earned technical expertise in favour of filthy coal and inefficient renewables is completely silly. Until we find/unlock the next fuel source with a higher energy density, it’s the best we’ve got. We should be leveraging it to improve people’s quality of life as we have with every energy related breakthrough in human history.