Calvert Cliffs

Federal regulators plan a hearing Jan. 26 on a challenge to a French company's bid to build a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, and will take public comments the day before. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will air contentions by four anti-nuclear groups that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has not adequately weighed alternatives to building the facility. The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Albright Building, 205 Main St. in Prince Frederick.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has charged Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant with a safety violation after an employee "deliberately became inattentive" — meaning he was caught napping — last year in the room housing diesel generators for use in an emergency. Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said Tuesday the employee was promptly dismissed after a supervisor discovered him, and the company does not intend to challenge the NRC's findings. The federal agency said it appeared to be an isolated incident and classified the infraction as of very low safety significance.

Federal inspectors are at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant this week to investigate an unexpected shutdown of both reactors last week, which a plant spokesman said apparently was triggered by melting snow leaking through the plant's roof. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a five-member "special inspection team" Monday to the 1,750-megawatt plant near Lusby in Calvert County, which is owned by Constellation Energy. It's expected to remain there all week, NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said.

Federal regulators plan a hearing Jan. 26 on a challenge to a French company's bid to build a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, and will take public comments the day before. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will air contentions by four anti-nuclear groups that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has not adequately weighed alternatives to building the facility. The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Albright Building, 205 Main St. in Prince Frederick.

Max Obuszewski is both inaccurate and misleading in his complaints about Rep. Steny H. Hoyer's support for the new Calvert Cliffs reactor ("Readers Respond," July 6). It is untrue that "the insurance companies refuse to issue policies for nuclear power plants." There is a consortium of insurance companies, the American Nuclear Insurers, which provides the insurance mandated by the Price-Anderson Act, which requires the owner of each reactor to carry $110 million of insurance to cover the clean-up and liability costs of an accident at any other reactor in the U.S. (if a company owns multiple reactors, it must carry that multiple of $110 million)

The ancient "whale" skull discovered eroding from the clay at Calvert Cliffs last spring is actually that of an extinct species of dolphin. Scientists and volunteers extracted the 16 million-year-old fossil from the cliffs over the weekend. They revealed what paleontologist Stephen Godfrey of the Calvert Marine Museum tentatively identified Tuesday as a Eurhinodelphinid , an odd-looking marine mammal with a long, slender upper snout and a lower jaw about half that length. "It looks a little like a swordfish," he said.

In Jay Hancock's article, "Lack of climate change bill killed new nuclear reactor" (October 10), he concludes that now, more than ever, large, expensive interstate transmission lines, particularly PATH and TrAIL, are needed for electricity. This is a faulty conclusion. The same reasoning that made Calvert Cliffs 3 illogical works against PATH and TrAIL — there are more viable alternatives economically and environmentally. First and foremost is energy efficiency and demand response.

They can cancel the beret and tricolor-flag orders at the Perryman Power Plant. The French won't buy the Harford County facility after all. On Tuesday, owner Constellation Energy Group agreed to cancel its option to sell about a dozen electricity plants to EDF Group, the big energy company controlled by the French government. At the same time, Constellation let EDF assume development of a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. But I wouldn't start polishing the escargot forks at Calvert Cliffs, either.

Gov. Martin O'Malley should reject Electricité de France's (EDF) proposal to force Maryland residents to underwrite construction of a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. Why? Because it makes no economic sense. Little more than a year ago, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved EDF's acquisition of Constellation Energy's nuclear assets. But the commission wisely conditioned its approval on a series of protections that would ensure that Baltimore Gas & Electric's customers would not only be held harmless from any future bad business decisions by Constellation (BGE's parent company)

A reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant has resumed operations after a planned refueling outage, owner Constellation Energy Nuclear Group announced Tuesday. In February, one reactor shut down after an electrical malfunction caused by melting snow on a leaky roof, triggering the other to shut down as well, a Constellation spokesman said at the time. One reactor returned to service March 1 after confirming there were no safety issues, but the second reactor was scheduled to be shut down for refueling.

The state Board of Public Works gave its unanimous approval Wednesday to a wetlands dredging permit for a company that hopes to build a third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs power plant in Southern Maryland, even though the project is far from getting off the ground. The board granted the permit to UniStar Operating Services LLC after being told approval would help the company secure the licensing, financing and U.S.-based partner it would need to get the stalled project moving.

Three years ago, Constellation Energy boss Mayo Shattuck signed up a huge French electricity company to save his job. By now, he may be wondering whether the deal was worth it. Owned mostly by the French government, EDF Group first clashed with Constellation about developing a new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. Then it publicly threatened Shattuck in a stare-down over a financial option worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Now it's trying to bust up Constellation's $7.9 billion agreement to merge with Chicago-based Exelon Corp.

Don't worry, the folks who operate nuclear power plants near Baltimore told us after a Japanese earthquake caused meltdowns and large radioactivity releases there. We don't have severe earthquakes on the East Coast. That proposition got tested Aug. 23, when the 5.8-magnitude quake centered in Virginia rattled buildings as far north as Toronto. The closest nuclear plant to Baltimore is Exelon Corp.'s Peach Bottom facility on the Susquehanna River, 45 miles away. Peach Bottom is built to withstand ground movement equal to an earthquake registering 6.1 on the Richter scale, Exelon said in April, after the Japan catastrophe.

Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland is due for closer scrutiny by federal regulators after unspecified security lapses discovered there earlier this year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has finalized a "greater than green" finding of security deficiencies spotted during a special inspection from January to July of this year, according to a letter released Wednesday. The agency has not disclosed the nature of the problems, saying that releasing such information might help someone to attack or sabotage the twin-reactor plant in Lusby in Calvert County.

Workers at Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Southern Maryland were working Sunday afternoon to bring a reactor online after it was shut down late Saturday when a piece of debris tossed by heavy winds from Hurricane Irene damaged a transformer. Spokesman Mark Sullivan said "Unit 1" remains off-line while workers inspect the transformer and ensure it is in "safe and workable condition. " A second reactor was working fine at 100 percent power, and the plant remains stable, Sullivan said.

Constellation Energy Group's nuclear venture partner is asking Maryland energy regulators to be a party in the case examining the proposed merger between the Baltimore company and Chicago-based Exelon Corp. In a petition filed Thursday with the Maryland Public Service Commission, French utility EDF Group said its "interests are unique and will be affected by the proposed transaction which implicates significant issues related to reliability. " EDF owns nearly half of Constellation's nuclear power business, which operates plants in New York and two Calvert Cliffs units in Southern Maryland.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has charged Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant with a safety violation after an employee "deliberately became inattentive" — meaning he was caught napping — last year in the room housing diesel generators for use in an emergency. Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said Tuesday the employee was promptly dismissed after a supervisor discovered him, and the company does not intend to challenge the NRC's findings. The federal agency said it appeared to be an isolated incident and classified the infraction as of very low safety significance.

A federal environmental review has found no reason not to permit construction of a third Calvert Cliffs nuclear power reactor in southern Maryland, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Friday. The final environmental impact statement by the NRC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District recommends issuance of a construction and operating permit to Unistar to build a 1,500 megawatt pressurized water reactor near Lusby in Calvert County. Other regulatory hurdles remain.

Leo Francis Dudek, a retired mechanical engineer and decorated World War II veteran who was active with the Catholic War Veterans of America, died Sunday of pulmonary fibrosis at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The longtime Dundalk resident was 85. Leo Francis Dudek, the son of a crane operator and a cannery worker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Canton. After graduating from Patterson High School in 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Stationed at Tinian, in the Mariana Islands, where he served with the 24th Bomb Squadron, 6th Bomb Group.