They aren't; that's what people will think of them as though. It's taken us this long to actually build a new plant period; it'll be a while longer before people are convinced it's safe to live across the street from one.
This contradicts what you said in your first post: "they're small nukes, but they're still nukes. (and if they're networked, could be even worse than a centralized plant)"
What is the issue? That they are dangerous or that people perceive them to be?
"Nuke", in this case, was being used as a shorter way to say "nuclear reactor". Nuclear reactors are, of course, completely different from nuclear bombs.
