Maryland moved a step closer this week to commissioning the nation’s first new nuclear reactor since 1974, but there is still a long road ahead before any construction begins.
The Board of Public Works voted unanimously to grant UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC the wetlands permit that it needs to build a proposed third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Lusby.
UniStar released a statement after the BPW vote saying, “This is an important milestone in our development of the Calvert Cliffs 3 project. As we have consistently indicated, a number of different factors need to align before a project of the scope of Calvert Cliffs 3 is brought to fruition, including, most notably, the realization of a regulatory framework within the State of Maryland and receipt of a Department of Energy loan guarantee.”
UniStar, a subsidiary of the French energy company EDF, also needs to find an American-owned partner company to meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations because Baltimore-based utility company Constellation Energy pulled out of the joint venture in 2010.
Constellation Energy left the partnership largely due to the joint venture’s inability to agree to the terms of a loan guarantee with the federal government, according to an October 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal.
“As EDF has repeatedly stated, UniStar intends to obtain a U.S. partner” before license approval, said UniStar spokeswoman Laura Eifler.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent body within the NRC, will hold public comment sessions on the third nuclear reactor in the afternoon and evening Jan. 25 at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons.
A legal hearing will be conducted by the ASLB Jan. 26 in Prince Frederick on a challenge from four anti-nuclear groups to UniStar’s application for the third reactor, according to an NRC press release.
“The challenge alleges the NRC staff’s draft environmental impact statement failed to adequately analyze and discuss alternatives to the proposed reactor,” the release said. The challenge cites wind and solar energy as alternatives.
Michael Mariotte, executive director of the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Information Resource Service, will testify at the hearing.
A ruling is expected in the spring, Mariotte said.
If the three-judge panel rules in Mariotte’s favor, the NRC will have to rewrite its environmental impact statement and reconsider whether the third reactor is “environmentally preferable” to wind and solar energy alternatives.
A decision in favor of the anti-nuclear groups would “not necessarily be a deathblow” to the proposed reactor, or delay construction because UniStar has a lot of other obstacles to overcome, including the need to find an American partner, Mariotte said.
“It is disappointing that Maryland continues to perpetuate the fiction that this reactor will ever be built,” Mariotte said.
UniStar has been attempting to build a third reactor since 2007.
— Varun Saxena
Brian Mann says
While most of the article is correct, the statement “Maryland moved a step closer this week to commissioning the nation’s first new nuclear reactor since 1974” is totally false. There are three new reactors currently being built in Georgia (Vogtle 3 & 4) and South Carolina (VC Summer 2). Watts Barr 2 in Tennessee is also being completed. Since 1974, 67 plants have gone into operation. That’s out of 104 operating reactors.
The author needs to tone down the hyperbole used to make a catchy headline and stick to the facts.
Joe Diamond says
Hey Brian,
Those reactors are on the Western Shore so they don’t count.
Also that new reactor is going in down in Calvert County next to reactors one and two. That will make three reactors near (in the same county) as the liquid natural gas terminal. How about a headline like NUKES CREEP CLOSER TO GAS PLANT?
Joe
Brian Mann says
Hi Joe,
I used to work at Calvert Cliffs many years ago and I was in charge of the analysis of the hazards from the gas plant. As I lived right next to the gas plant, I paid particular attention to my work!
Bottom line is that the LNG plant poses no hazard to the plant even if the whole thing went kaboom. It’s too far away (about 3 miles as I recall). A more realistic risk is from the LNG ships (Although, I think the current plant is used to store piped in LNG and ships aren’t used). Even if you assume one of those ships plows into the Calvert Cliffs shoreline (ignoring the legally required tugs and Coast Guard escort), it still doesn’t do significant damage to the plant. The plant is built for fire, tornado missiles, hurricanes, earthquakes. Some LNG doesn’t stand a chance.
Joe Diamond says
Brian,
I was working at Solomon’s Island in 1976 when they were building all that stuff. You wouldn’t believe the privations we endured. Had to share the only bar in town with high steel riggers and electricians from Calvert Cliffs and the gas plant.
Everything you stated was explained to the locals at that time and they wouldn’t swallow any of it. They saw the evacuation signs in the phone booths and on road signs. The only thing that calmed them down was the massive tax cuts they received……………I think they even got refunds some years.
I respect the facts and logic you are presenting but folks make up their minds and close their eyes. You gotta make it loud to get their attention. As someone who writes a check each month to both Choptank Power and Delmarva Power I look for my own personal headline…..NEW PLANT WILL CUT ELECTRIC BILLS.
Even though these comments are submitted to moderation it is good to have someone with actual knowledge moderating the moderation,
Good one!
Joe
Frank Gerber says
Unfortunately ,Joe, that Headline will never be printable.
Joe Diamond says
Hi Frank,
I fear you are correct. When I got an $800.00 / one month electric bill from Delmarva I called them to come check their meter. They said it was probably correct……their supplier raised prices at the end of the contract …grrrr.
But for years the electric folks have been pushing energy conservation to avoid building another reactor. Now they are planning to do it. The timing is correct…there is a lot of cheap money out there for credit worthy borrowers.
What I fear is the 2012 costs to build a reactor #3 and the more fully realized costs of operation (code fer gettin rid of the spent fuel) will make you correct. Never is a long time. Maybe they can extend the costs out into the future. That is almost as long.
Joe
Steve Payne says
Joe Diamond says:
Brian,
I was working at Solomon’s Island in 1976 when they were building all that stuff. You wouldn’t believe the privations we endured. Had to share the only bar in town with high steel riggers and electricians from Calvert Cliffs and the gas plant.
—————-
Was that the Tiki Bar when it was tiny?
Steve Payne says
I think they paid for alot of county stuff too. The property taxes in the 90s were $2,500 for a 1,500 sq.ft. house in PG and the reverse in Calvert.
Joe Diamond says
Hey Steve,
No, the Tiki Bar was / is a summer thing on the back creek…………ducked in there once to ride out a storm. Three days later . . . missed an unimportant family event. … damn storm!
Real men hit the bar on the pier during the winters. Locals, contractors & occasional lost tourists hit the place. The other group that was always in there was the crew building the Pax River Bridge to Lexington Park.
That bridge project, possibly more than the reactors and the gas plant, changed the area. Imagine a bridge from Rock Hall to Essex. Calvert (culvert) County was way down the end of a peninsula with cheap land and lots of waterfront. That bridge cut loose the herd! The price of Bee Hive hair doos went through the roof! Gas went to almost a buck a gallon.
That #3 reactor could be a win win. Calvert County gets the construction money and we get cheaper electricity……Frank thinks not………but he is a percussionist. The anti reactor folks are pretty sure it won’t be in their back yard and they may not be drummers.
Joe
Steve Payne says
Hey Joe,
I remember when the improved Rt 4-2 and the bridge was built. It was quite a change. When the Defense dept ramped up in St Mary’s it caused quite a change too.
A builder client and sort of friend owned Boatel California on the other side. His name was Joe D too.
I never built in the Ranch Club or Drum point but looked at ,and sold a few lots down there. The water table was so high that in the winter “effluent” would just run out of the yards and streets and eventually into the bay.
Joe Diamond says
Steve,
That area and period was my early experience with government-speak. Pax River NAS was working on an air boat troop ship. They took it out every day for test runs and towed it back every afternoon when it didn’t sink. We were on the Culvert side in the NAS ” apartments.” The front lawn was as you said………..they couldn’t mow it during certain tide periods if the win was wrong. They had a perpetual pump keeping the septic system from flooding.
Here the Nike Base had the same deal. Just because the ground don’t perk does not mean that national defense wonks can’t have a septic system. When they left their system in the woods caved in. You wouldn’t believe what they dumped down the drains in Tolchester.
Last night on the Link channel all the nuke’em hawks of the 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s + their Russian counterparts did a piece on ….”Maybe we have enough nuclear weapons…BUT nfw there is enough fossil fuel for the future.”……so nuclear reactor # 3 at Calvert Cliffs seems like a slam dunk after all. Henry Kissinger said so…….and he is not a crook…unlike his boss.
I look at southern MD today and see a future history of Kent county.
Joe
Steve Payne says
The Nike Site is what brought me to Chestertown. It came on the market in the late 90s and a broker I knew told me about it. I didn’t even know anything about Chestertown much less Tolchester. I got directions off Google and they took me across the Ctown bridge and had me make a left at the light and then a right on High St.. Then on down to Tolchester. I never forgot Chestertown just from driving through it.
6 or 7 years later I bought an old beat up house and moved here.
We never bought the Nike site because nobody would finance it.
Joe Diamond says
Steve,
“Perk” rules here!
+
Every time they “defuled” those Nike missiles real nasty fuel apparently went into the ground water. It is a beautiful site but there is a reason why it has not been funded and developed. About ten years ago I was with some Boy Scouts that participated in a project to “mitigate” whatever was coming out of the ground by planting trash trees to “uptake” the chemicals.
The 4H uses the place and the county fait is there. The water will make you glow in the dark. The other rumor is / was there were nukes there. Beer is safe.
Joe
Steve Payne says
The potential environmental problem was our problem. I only worked with a couple of banks and they wouldn’t look at any site that had ever been used by the military unless a clean bill of health was already in hand. Can you imagine the phone conversation with an envirortech consultant ordering a Phase 3 for a missile site?
Joe Diamond says
I can imagine…………the military has the job of breaking the other guy’s stuff and hurting his people. Clean as you work is not their first concern….or that had been the case. The military is now reaping as they have sown. As bases are closed and planners discover…as you and the banks have…that buried and burned discarded material is still impacting the environment. Even at Tolchester the summary of the cleanup is still to allow what is still their to continue to rot. Close the eyes and it will all go away. Could have been worse if the opposition had shot back….I think.
Joe