Chemistry Week Eleven: Cell Biology and Radioactivity

I looked a little into the group that wanted to build a power plant in Fresno, which I spoke about last week. It looks like the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group had planned on building an European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) but have since switched their efforts to other energy projects. Despite claims of safety and nuclear as the "greenest" energy source, it seems that the EPR had some design-safety issues that were cause for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nuclear safety officials in various European countries to challenge the makers of EPR.

Its strange to me that proponents of nuclear energy continue to claim that nuclear energy is safe and green despite what we know about the incredible amounts of water wasted/polluted to cool down the reactors. Additionally, perhaps they could convince me nuclear is safe as long as the reactors are in 100% prime working condition and no errors are made, but proponents of nuclear energy clearly have more faith in humanity than I do. What makes them believe that human error is out of the question?

I would like more information. I want to understand why they believe in nuclear energy. Is it really safe as long as there is not human error? Is my opposition to nuclear some knee-jerk reaction of a person who doesn't know any better?

Honestly, theres a part of me that thinks "if nuclear energy is good enough for the Star Trek universe, shouldn't it be good enough for me?" But I can't imagine we are anywhere near the technology necessary to actually make nuclear safe.

Below are two links with some information about the proposed plant and the switch the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group made after they realized their power plant plan was never going to work out. If you want more information about how we challenged and disrupted this proposal, feel free to ask. That action was a lot of fun ;)

http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=2836

http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/news/energy-and-environment/11349-fresno