> This argument that nuclear power generation is clean if you ignore the times when it isn't seems a bit no-true-Scotsman to me.

The same can be said about wind and solar. Nothing about producing the rare earths required is clean.

Even if we include Chernobyl, nuclear is still by far the safest source of energy when looking at deaths per TWh generated.

> I can, off the top of my head, name two sites that are dangerous decades after they were polluted

Two? I can only count one. Fukushima is almost perfectly safe today, although exclusion zones still exist.