You describe the pro-nuke folks as 'spokespeople for the nuclear industry' and the anti-nuclear folks as simply 'opponents' of nuclear power. That implies that the pro nuke people are simply paid PR types, and ignores that they tend to believe in what they say.
The quibble is about anti-nuclear activists not playing a role, and cost being the determining factor. For the most part I think you are right, but are ignoring the power of local opposition to thwart nuclear power. Local pols tend to be quite responsive to intense feelings among their constituents - if they aren't they're out in the next election. In cases where a nuke plant was abandoned after being mostly completed it seems likely that anti-nuke opposition was the reason - the capital investment was already mostly completed and AFAIK nuclear power is competitive in its operating costs.
Because the industry has such deep pockets and is closely tied to the military with its culture of for-their-own-goodism, secrecy, black ops and so on, many of its loudest and most visible spokespeople turn out to be paid; whereas many of the loudest and most visible antinuke protestors are amateurs, activists from principle or from a personal grudge against particular abuses or dishonesties they have witnessed on their own turf. But this shouldn't, as you rightly point out, lead us to overgeneralise that all support for nuclear power generation is venal in motive. Thanks for the correction... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
