Calvert Cliffs

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.

It's never a good thing to lose a corporate headquarters, particularly the last Fortune 500 company in town. None of the purported benefits Constellation Energy Group is trotting out to pretty up its proposed sale to Exelon Corp. of Chicago changes that fact. But it is also no surprise that Constellation would be sold. CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III has clearly been aiming for such a deal for years, and has tried it twice before. It's only a matter of time before he succeeds, and this deal, at least, is not so bad for Baltimore as it might have been.

Federal officials said Friday that UniStar Nuclear Energy is not eligible to build a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs because it is not a U.S.-owned company, but also said they would continue to process its application. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a letter that although a review of the application for the $9.6 billion reactor in Southern Maryland will still take place, a license would not be issued until the ownership requirements were met. Federal law prohibits complete ownership or control of a U.S. nuclear plant by a foreign entity.

Thank you for the article on nuclear plant safety in this country ("Should we worry about nuclear plants here?" March 20). As you point out, the Peach Bottom Reactor shares the same boiling water reactor design as the Daiichi plants. Calvert Cliffs is not a boiling water reactor. (It is a pressurized water reactor, as was Three Mile Island.) It is also only 3-4 miles from the largest liquid natural gas terminal in the United States. A huge fire at the terminal might have very serious consequences down the road.

Like many Americans, Linda Billings has been following news of the unfolding crisis in earthquake-rocked Japan, where a crippled nuclear power plant teeters on the brink of a disastrous meltdown. But the 55-year-old Street resident is paying perhaps a bit more attention than most. Her home in northern Harford County is less than 10 miles from a similarly designed nuclear plant just across the border in Pennsylvania. "I've not worried about it, but perhaps I should," she said late last week.

Our prayers go out to the people of Japan who must cope with the fear of exposure to radioactive contamination from the nuclear reactor and nuclear waste partial meltdowns in Fukushima following the devastating earthquake and tsunami. The Daiichi nuclear accidents occurred on the eve of the 25th anniversary of biggest nuclear disaster of all, at Chernobyl. The death toll for the 25 years since the catastrophe has recently been estimated at 900,000 in Europe and Russia. Those of us who have been concerned about the "insurmountable risks" with nuclear power know that a disaster unfortunately could occur here, no matter how reassuring industry and government officials try to be. Recently we learned that the U.S. nuclear power plant at the highest risk for core meltdown due to an earthquake is at Indian Point, less than 50 miles from the 20 million people who live in and around New York City.

Ellen Vancko, a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) spokesperson, made criticisms of the economics of modern nuclear energy ("Calvert Cliffs 3 makes no economic sense," March 9) which are unsubstantiated. The UCS is mired in the conditions of the 1970s and unwilling to acknowledge the changes in global nuclear energy development in the 21st century. The UCS is lukewarmly pro-nuclear, exaggerating the hazards of the technology while claiming to support it. By focusing on subsides to the nuclear power industry, some from 50 years ago, Ms. Vancko failed to mention that the renewables are receiving generous subsidies today.

The operator of Maryland's Calvert Cliffs twin reactors sought to reassure state residents that the facility remains safe, as Japan grapples with this weekend's explosion at a nuclear plant after an earthquake and tsunami. Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for the Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said the company's plants, including Calvert Cliffs, are designed to withstand any shock plants indicated by the seismic history of the geographic areas in which they're located. Sullivan said company officials are closely monitoring the events at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.