Do you mean that in the sense that there's also "very little risk in operating a nuclear power plant"? As in, we know how to do it safely and contained (perfect world scenario), but there's a lot of risk in non-optional secondary processes?

I don't mean anything utopian. I mean that my understanding is that environmental risk due to fracking is very carefully monitored and can be controlled to some acceptable epsilon.

FWIW, there IS very little risk of operating a nuclear power plant. Incidents, while spectacular, are extremely rare. They say ( whoever "they" is ) that molten salt and other technologies are safer yet.