You've heard of economically depressed towns lobbying to be the site of a new prison. But who wants a nuclear reactor in the neighborhood?
Fresno does, or at least a group of local investors called the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group LLC do. The group has signed an agreement in principle with a power plant developer to build a $4 billion, 1,600-megawatt nuclear plant in the San Joaquin Valley city best known as the Raisin Capital of the World (a title hotly disputed by nearby Selma, where the raisin-packing plants are).
Despite being the nation's top agricultural county (or perhaps because of it) Fresno suffers from high unemployment. So the Energy Group thinks a nuclear power plant would be a good source of jobs.
Reactor meltdowns? Radioactive waste? Multibillion-dollar construction cost overruns? Not a problem, according to the corporate propaganda campaign to reposition nuclear power as a safe, clean and cheap answer to global warming.
