Executives from French energy giant Areva are visiting Fresno this week, a sign that a planned nuclear facility in the San Joaquin Valley is still on the table.

Local businessman John Hutson, who is working with Areva, said his French partners are in town to discuss the project's technology and how to move forward -- despite the many obstacles ahead of them.

"You know damn well they're interested and they see this as a real possibility," Hutson said Wednesday.

The project, whose location is yet to be determined, remains a long shot. The state has a moratorium on new nuclear power plants, opposition to nuclear has grown since last year's meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi, and the costs of building a reactor are huge.

But Hutson, who heads up the investment group Fresno Nuclear Energy, has ways to get around these hurdles, or so he says. And, he knows that California will face increasing energy demand in its future and nuclear may be surest way of accommodating.

The planned project calls for a 1000-megawatt energy complex, eventually growing much larger, that combines wind, solar and nuclear power. (One megawatt typically serves 500 to 1,000 homes.)

The complex also proposes a desalination plant to provide irrigation water to farmers.

This week, the partners sweetened the proposal by committing to move Areva's solar-panel manufacturing center and its jobs to the Valley if the project is built, according to Hutson.

Still, the benefits of a nuclear plant will remain a tough sell.

The partners said recently that the site of the project is likely to be Madera County, where civic leaders have been most friendly to the idea. The initial plan was to build the project in Fresno County but county supervisors there have been wary.

Hutson said this week the group remains hopeful for a 2017 ground-breaking.