Nuclear Power

Vienna. -- West European governments and nuclear-energy companies are seeking to fill the dangerous vacuum left by the collapse of a central supervisory authority over the civil atomic-power industry of the disintegrated Soviet Union.Hans Blix, the director general of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, has offered help to the republics joining the Commonwealth of Independent States that has replaced the Soviet Union. Sweden is helping Lithuania establish an independent nuclear-power authority; and British Nuclear Fuels and France's Cogema have opened negotiations with East European countries over the fate of mounting nuclear wastes which Moscow has refused to accept for processing despite its contractual obligation to do so.At stake is the future of 62 largely obsolete Soviet-designed nuclear-power plants, most of them in Europe and 17 in the fledgling Eastern and Central European democracies.

Blame fuel costs, not deregulation Electricity costs have increased in all regions - those that have restructured their electricity markets, such as Maryland, and those that have elected to maintain the old, regulatory approach. So it is an overly simplistic assessment for Jay Hancock to point to rising electricity prices in Maryland and assert that the state's restructured power market is to blame ("High electricity costs hurting Md. manufacturers, jobs," May 9). Nationally, the cost increases for other forms of energy used by consumers have far surpassed the percentage cost increases for electricity.

One of Southern Maryland's largest employers and the state's largest single power generator, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is a powerful, even somewhat majestic, collection of buildings that convert the awesome force of smashed atoms to electricity.But with deregulation and competition gripping the utility industry, nuclear plants such as Calvert Cliffs will have to fight for survival, analysts caution. The unprecedented changes in the energy industry may cause nuclear plants that are unable to withstand equally awesome economic realities of the 1990s to go dark.

Now that BGE Co.'s electric deregulation plan has been approved, Constellation Energy Group, its parent, said yesterday that it will build and acquire additional power plants as it focuses on becoming a major national power provider.To kick off the strategy, Constellation Energy said it would shift its 13 power plants -- 10 in Maryland and three in Pennsylvania with total capacity of 6,200 megawatts -- from BGE to two nonregulated subsidiaries once Maryland's electric market is fully deregulated July 1.BGE's 12 hydroelectric and fossil fuel plants will become part of Constellation Power Source, which was set up in 1997 to sell energy and related services to the wholesale market and municipalities throughout the country.

Reduced operating costs helped GTS Duratek Inc.'s results improve dramatically in the second quarter, the company said yesterday, reporting a net income of $2.7 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with a loss of $387,000, or 6 cents a share, posted for the second quarter of 1998.Revenue in the three months that ended June 30 grew 7 percent to $41.7 million compared with $38.8 million in the quarter last year.In the 1998 quarter, the Columbia-based hazardous-waste disposal company booked about $2 million in higher-than-expected costs related to putting together proposals to decommission two nuclear power plants and to restructuring one of its facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

WASHINGTON -- Twenty years after the meltdown at Three Mile Island, the nuclear industry has succeeded in ways that were hard to imagine in March 1979 as Pennsylvania cowered in fear and plants around the nation subsequently lost their luster and scores of half-built reactors were abandoned. The industry is doing better now, but extinction is in sight.Today, reactors are quietly producing about one-quarter more electricity each, and the level of radiation exposure to workers is down, as is the number of automatic shut-downs.

WHO WOULD HAVE thought that the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant outside Harrisburg, site of the nation's most serious nuclear accident, would so soon become a valuable commodity? And not as a tourist attraction but as a reborn producer of electricity?AmerGen Energy Corp. is buying the plant for $100 million, intending to operate the undamaged Unit 1 reactor for power production. (Unit 2 is unusable after the 1979 partial reactor meltdown.)AmerGen and competing Entergy Corp. are the leaders in buying up existing nuclear power plants -- at distress sale prices -- and looking for economies of scale as power companies search for new roles under deregulation.

GTS Duratek Inc., a Columbia hazardous-waste-disposal company, said yesterday that it received a contract worth an estimated $40 million to $50 million to help take an aging New England nuclear power plant out of service.The company will provide on-site radioactive-waste management, packaging, transportation, processing and disposal of all radioactive and hazardous waste related to the decommissioning of Connecticut Yankee's Haddam Nuclear Power Station in Haddam Nek, Conn., by Bechtel Power Corp.

ONCE the dream of interplanetary romantics, the idea of traveling hundreds of millions of miles to Saturn by powering a spacecraft with a compact nuclear generator is well on its way to becoming a reality. But NASA's Cassini spacecraft's voyage has generated much controversy.Even before it thundered off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., 19 months ago, anti-nuclear groups had protested NASA's plutonium-powered spacecraft, exploiting public fears about radiation.Now such groups are planning demonstrations timed to coincide with Cassini's orbital loop, when it flies within 800 miles of the Earth in mid-August.

MOSCOW -- Russia started late, hasn't done enough, and won't get it done before New Year's Day, so it seems that the world's largest country is going to discover how serious a problem Y2K can be.Russia is so immense -- it has 11 time zones -- that the first anxiously awaited moments of 2000 will take almost a half-day to roll across the country.It probably won't mean planes falling out of the sky or trains running backward, and almost no one expects a glitch to cause the launching of nuclear missiles.

The debate over Constellation Energy Group's proposal to sell almost half of its nuclear power business to a French-owned utility continued Thursday night in Baltimore. Supporters and opponents of the deal both claimed to represent the best interests of Maryland's financial, energy and environmental future. Employees of Constellation and its subsidiary, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., filled at least a third of the seats in the room and applauded heartily as their speakers argued that the $4.5 billion deal would ensure the future health and growth of the company and its value as a corporate citizen of Maryland.

A mostly tidy little stand-off the other night over expanding Constellation Energy's nuclear power complex at Calvert Cliffs was interrupted with the heretical suggestion that the region doesn't need all that new power from any source - or the expanded ability to deliver it. This suggestion comes despite rapid growth in the Mid-Atlantic that has choked electricity transmission lines and invoked predictions of rolling brown-outs within the next several years....

Constellation Energy Group's pending $4.5 billion deal to sell half of its nuclear power business to France's largest utility is one step closer to completion. The New York State Public Service Commission approved the acquisition Tuesday, saying that "no potential for harm exists" regarding market power or other negative effects for New York ratepayers. Besides Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, Constellation also owns Nine Mile Point Nuclear Unit I and II in Oswego, N.Y., and R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, N.Y. The approval by New York energy regulators is the latest regulatory hurdle the Baltimore company has cleared since agreeing to the deal with Electricite de France.

This has proved to be a memorable year for Constellation Energy Group, but not often for the better. From the company's disastrous financial downturn this summer to its rescue by Warren E. Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings to its apparent rescue from its rescuer last week by state-owned Electricite de France, it's getting difficult to know who is winning and losing in all these transactions. Aside from the only obvious winner - the celebrated investor from Omaha doubled his company's initial $1 billion payout in a mere three months - the rest of the picture looks muddled.

The deal that rescued Constellation Energy Group Inc. yesterday from extinction, ensuring for now a Baltimore future for one of the city's major corporate headquarters, will also lead to the arrival of a new corporation in Maryland with plans to foster an American "renaissance" in the development of nuclear power. Electricite de France, the French utility giant that agreed to a $4.5 billion partnership with Constellation, said it plans to move its American headquarters to Maryland to lead its expansion into U.S. energy markets.

Wall Street's three major credit-rating agencies said yesterday that they are studying the latest twist in Constellation Energy Group's pending sale to decide whether changes should be made to the Baltimore company's bond ratings, a source of concern that helped push it to seek buyers this summer. The proposed $4.7 billion takeover of Constellation, the parent of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., by Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. was cast into question this week with a proposal by Constellation's largest shareholder.

Track down tax refund or stimulus check More than $4 million worth of stimulus checks and tax refunds belonging to thousands of Marylanders have been returned to the Internal Revenue Service as undeliverable. If your tax rebate or refund hasn't arrived, check with the IRS to make sure it has your correct address. Review the status of your check or refund online at www.irs.gov, clicking on "Where's My Stimulus Payment?" or "Where's My Refund?" Those without Internet access can call 866-234-2942 to find out about their stimulus check and 800-829-1954 to inquire about a refund.

From the marshy fringe of the Chesapeake Bay to the flat farms of the Eastern Shore, Marylanders are pondering how to harness energy and reduce damage to their land while getting it. The discussion has permeated the contest for president, with John McCain and Barack Obama talking of lessening the nation's dependence on foreign oil and minimizing heat-trapping greenhouse gases formed when fossil fuels are burned. As candidates trade proposals, Marylanders such as Donald Graf, an engineer who has designed nuclear power systems throughout his adult life, and Eric Stocker, who struggles to prevent waste from his Eastern Shore farm from flushing into nearby streams, are attuned.

Constellation Energy Group expects to receive a $1 billion reprieve from its credit crisis today, collecting an emergency payment as part of a $4.7 billion takeover by Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings, even as questions linger about a possible counteroffer. The $1 billion payment, which MidAmerican Chief Executive Officer Gregory E. Abel said should happen today, is designed to assuage worries on Wall Street about Constellation's ability to post collateral to shore up its energy trading operations.

It's billed as a clean, "green" source of energy, and most of the citizens who spoke at a recent public hearing voiced their enthusiastic support for it. Earlier this year, another clean, "green" source of energy similarly was debated at a public hearing, but in that case, an even vaster and more vocal majority rose to denounce it. Which was the hearing for a proposed nuclear reactor, and which was the hearing for a wind farm? We're in something of a Bizarro World - the alternate universe in which everyone from Superman to Jerry Seinfeld have found themselves - these days when it comes to our desire to generate more electricity without killing the planet along the way. In this world, it's the once ominous nuclear power plant that has somehow morphed into a cuddly, friend of the Earth, while the seemingly benign wind farm has turned into this dreaded blot on the land - and seascape.