Please educate me on Nuclear Power

I live in Elmore Country, Idaho. There is a company from Texas trying to build a nuclear power plant out here, by a river. We are a small town and we do need to create more semi-local jobs but this seems ridiculous. The company trying to build the plant does not have a good track record - that is the main local headline grabber. And so the entire issue gets twisted up in biased opinions, either strongly for or against. Granted - I'm not at all in favor of a bunch of greedy incompetents trying to build anything, let alone anything that could blow up and/or leak into our water supply. But I'd still like to be more educated on the subject of nuclear power overall. Is it truly even possible to operate a nuclear power plant in a clean and safe manner? I'm aware of many of the risks but what, if any, are the rewards?