It's gut, but un-informed feelings like yours that are the cause of so much environmental destruction.
> I knew people first hand who died from chernobyl's toxic rain.
And I know of people who today are suffering from asthma and lung cancer from coal's toxic exhaust. And newsflash: There are way way way way more of them.
It's irrational confidence like yours that nuclear power is in any way safe, and therefore a good replacement. Coal doesn't need a replacement, we need to start using energy responsibly. That means not using energy when we don't have it. A nuclear plant is not an acceptable way to generate energy.
Using less power is not a realistic proposal. You should not expect that to be taken seriously.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/... says homes are down to using less energy in 2013 than anytime since the early 2000's. Here's a graph of energy use over time http://nation.time.com/2013/10/24/interactive-see-how-americ...