That's part of it, but if you lived through months of news about where milk is unsafe and how to wash your vegetables and how much iodine to take. You'd maybe think differently too.

All the "oh, but it's different now, it's really safe" implies that the scientist at the time of the Chernobyl disaster didn't give assurance that it's totally safe either.

I am in favor of nuclear power and think that closing the plants was a huge mistake, but it's not somehow fully irrational to opose nuclear power. Not everyone has the hubris of thinking they can evaluate the risks when being shown some data. Nor can they distinguish the difference between "the experts then said it's safe" and "the experts now say it's safe".