� A nuclear power expert who's involved with trying to build a plant east of Pueblo said Monday that chances are nil that Japan's scenario could play out anywhere in this country.

� Don Gillispie, CEO of Alternative Energy Holdings Inc., in Idaho, said federal regulations require American plants to have multiple backup power and reactor-cooling systems that would have prevented the Japanese crisis. He spoke by phone Monday, hours before the third explosion in four days at a nearly out-of-control reactor in Japan.

� Gillispie said he once managed a Massachusetts plant that was nearly identical to Japan's imperiled plant, which has no secondary backup power or cooling system. It was built 40 years ago using a design that's 50 years old. Older plants in the United States have been retrofitted with multiple backup systems, he said.

� Despite the Japanese plant's age and lack of backup systems, he said, it took both a very strong earthquake and a record-breaking tsunami to create the current situation.

� First, the earthquake knocked out power to the plant. The auxiliary, diesel-powered backup unit kicked in as it should have, but then was inundated with saltwater from the tsunami that followed the quake, he said.

� Such a scenario was unlikely even in earthquake-prone Japan, but is very unlikely in the United States because, with few exceptions, American nuclear power plants are built inland and never on seismic faults, he said. The Japanese plant sits on a major seismic fault along the coastline.

� "I'd say the chances of an earthquake followed by a tsunami in Colorado are pretty small," Gillispie said, referring to the local proposal.

� Gillispie is one of several technical consultants to local backers of the proposed Clean Energy Park and likely will bid on the project if it goes forward.

� Gillispie stressed that today's nuclear plant designs are subject to strict federal regulation that requires all plants be designed to withstand a major, sustained power loss.

� The newest designs have "multiple redundant backup power and cooling systems, plus passive systems" that would have kicked in to and prevent overheating of the nuclear reactor. So if one of the backup systems were knocked out, another would take over, he said.

� Further, what's going on with Japan's reactor "is not a meltdown." he said. "But (overheated plutonium) fuel pellets tend to oxidize, or rust, if you will, and then they start cracking and letting radiation out" in very small amounts.

� The process also releases hydrogen. Gillispie said it was the reaction caused by hydrogen as it hit oxygen in the atmosphere that caused the explosions TV viewers are watching over and over. The amount of radiation being released is not a health threat to anyone, even in the immediate vicinity, he added.

� "The International Atomic Energy Agency rated this event below Three Mile Island" in terms of danger to the public, he said. The World Health Organization also has declared that "the probability of health effects to the public, in or around the plant, is very low. No one will be sick because of this."

� Gillispie said the media is feeding the public's outdated and unfounded fears of nuclear power without explaining what actually happened at the Japanese plant and why � or that the plant is much different from those already operating in the United States, and "generations away" from the few that are on the drawing board, including the local proposal.

� "President (Barack) Obama clearly stated that we're overreacting to what's going on in Japan and we need to move forward" regarding development of alternative power sources, including nuclear power, he said.

� While explosions and steam spewing from smokestacks make for captivating visual images, "the cooler heads and people who look at things more factually are not excited about this," he said.

� "But a lot of people don't want to hear this side. They just want the drama and excitement."