I think it always boils down to the assumptions made for nuclear risks. We come back to what was discussed in this "How can we talk rationally" thread you pointed to.

If you think that any anomaly related to anything nuclear is the end of the world, nothing will do but absolute perfection, which is not achievable.

The nuclear industry is like any other industrial operation. They spend their life dealing with breakdowns, mishaps, screw-ups, stuff that fails for no good reason and Murphy's Law. And none the less it works because the industry explicitly rejects the notion above. The key notions are design simplicity, defense in depth, redundancy, fast communication, return on experience and preventative action. And the factual record says it works very well.

Same at the government level. A lot of things can go wrong before the whole thing goes wrong. What you need to avoid is the situation in the US where a single fucker is able to crash the entire thing.

Interestingly, You'll note though that the GWB disaster is happening only because of the general acceptance for governmental secrecy. Take that away and GWB would have imploded 4 years ago. No Iraq, no New Orleans. Well, probably no Republican party for that matter.

Transparency is not a cure-all but it allows what's done in the nuclear industry, early action before things go really wrong.