Reactor

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joseph Cunniffe sees the proposed third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs as a huge opportunity for his Sykesville-based firm GSE Systems, which develops simulation and training systems for the power-generation industry. So did more than 100 companies that gathered Thursday in Baltimore for an event drawing suppliers and vendors looking to do business with Areva, the world's largest reactor maker, which is designing and building the proposed third unit with construction company Bechtel.

One reactor at Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant automatically shut down Wednesday afternoon after a temporary problem distributing electricity to the grid, a company spokesman said. Calvert Cliffs I remains shut down as officials troubleshoot and investigate why that problem occurred at 1:51 p.m., said the spokesman, Dave Fitz. "Plant staff took appropriate action," he said. "The safety of Calvert Cliffs was never threatened from this activity." Staff reported the shutdown to the NRC within two hours, Fitz said.

Constellation Energy Group Inc. has filed the first partial application to build a new nuclear reactor in the United States in almost 30 years. Constellation filed an environmental report with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that seeks permission to build a third reactor at its Calvert Cliffs site in Lusby, according to documents on the commission's Web site. "They're the first in the door with some part of a request to actually build a new reactor," Scott Burnell, spokesman for the commission, said yesterday.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. abruptly shut down one of two reactors at its Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby late Thursday, after workers discovered a leak in a steam pipe.The manual shutdown of the Unit 2 reactor marks the first time since November 1996 that the reactor has stopped operating. The automatic shutdown that occurred then stemmed from a low water level in the reactor's steam generator.BGE spokesman Karl R. Neddenien said repairs to the pipe, which is in a non-nuclear area of the plant, would take "several days."

Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s long-standing problems with its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant may be drawing to a close.At BG&E's annual meeting today, shareholders were told that the second reactor of the two-reactor nuclear plant would return to service by the end of next week."

The United States is completing a deal to buy an advanced type of nuclear reactor built by the Soviet Union to power systems in space, federal officials say.The transaction would be the first major sale between the former antagonists of a sensitive space technology with military potential.Such a development, which would have been unthinkable a year or two ago, points up the extraordinary changes that have accompanied the end of the Cold War.The purchase is to be announced today in New Mexico at a scientific meeting.

A reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant remained shut down this morning as officials assess the damage caused when a piece of debris tossed by heavy winds damaged a transformer. A spokesman said as of 8 a.m. this morning that “Unit 1 is safely off-line.” A second reactor was working fine at 100 percent power, said Mark Sullivan, the spokesman for the Constellation Energy Nuclear Group. “All employees are safe,” he added. Sullivan said Saturday night that officials believe the damage was caused by a large piece of aluminum that was torn loose from a building.

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.

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.

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 agreement reached Tuesday between Constellation Energy Group and EDF Group giving the French company full ownership of a proposed expansion of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant may have kept the project alive — but perhaps only barely. The episode certainly produced its share of international corporate drama, from Constellation's threat to exercise an option that would force EDF to buy the company's non-nuclear assets at an inflated price to EDF's effort to put a notorious shark (pardon, an aggressively inquisitive attorney)

Constellation Energy Group and its French nuclear partner, EDF Group, reached an agreement late Tuesday to give EDF full ownership of the proposed third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs, reviving hopes for the project's future. Under the agreement, EDF will acquire Constellation's 50 percent stake in the Unistar nuclear-development company for $140 million. EDF will be the sole owner of Unistar and its plans to develop the third unit at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. And the deal will end Constellation's business in building new nuclear plants.

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)

One reactor at Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant automatically shut down Wednesday afternoon after a temporary problem distributing electricity to the grid, a company spokesman said. Calvert Cliffs I remains shut down as officials troubleshoot and investigate why that problem occurred at 1:51 p.m., said the spokesman, Dave Fitz. "Plant staff took appropriate action," he said. "The safety of Calvert Cliffs was never threatened from this activity." Staff reported the shutdown to the NRC within two hours, Fitz said.