This report says that Europe is starting to invest again in nuclear power [link no longer available]. Like the U.S., most of Europe stopped building nuclear power plants after the 1970s Three Mile Island disaster.
If you look strictly at deaths directly attributable to nuclear power and compare them to deaths from coal power, coal loses every time. There are mining disasters regularly, with the latest tragedy right here in Appalachia.
Nuclear's biggest problem was that during the sixties and seventies, every nuclear power plant designed was a one-off...that is, a custom design. It's like building cars by hand--expensive and increases the risk of problems. What we need is just one or two standard nuclear power plant designs that are well understood. Training and safety systems would be standardized, it would much easier to evaluate and test components, and the cost of off the shelf power plants would be much lower.
Nuclear power plants have virtually no emissions, do not generate acid rain or carbon dioxide, and don't require transporting large amounts of fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) across great distances. France generates 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, and has done so safely for more than twenty years. The U.S. needs to take another look at nuclear.