From today’s Washington Post, “Coalition Challenges Proposed 3rd Reactor“:

A coalition of environmental organizations filed legal challenges this week against the proposed third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs.

The group told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the problems with UniStar Nuclear Energy’s application to build a reactor at the Lusby site include the concurrent review of the reactor design and the license application; the storage and disposal of radioactive waste; and foreign partnerships involved in the project.

“We are basically trying to point out the inadequacy of the application itself. The issues we are raising will demonstrate that this is both an economically and environmentally bad deal for Maryland,” said Allison Fisher, energy organizer for Public Citizen‘s Energy Program.

So, no concurrent review of reactor and license application because government cannot do two things simultaneously? The efficiency apparently poses a threat; a 10-year approval process is much easier to derail than a five or four-year process.

No local, on-site storage of nuclear waste, either. And since Public Citizen opposes the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository for long-term, offsite storage, that effectively rules out any nuclear power.

And foreign partnerships are objectionable because…lousy French. They use nuclear power.

You can read Public Citizen’s news release here, which includes a warning about the Chesapeake Bay being unable to bear even more nuclear discharge. Well, yes, in reality nuclear plants don’t discharge radioactive waste, but…

You see a lot of alarmism and misstatement come from the environmentalist, anti-growth activists, but this one is a remarkably consistent piece of work.

Following up on yesterday’s Washington Post article, “Little Outcry on Nuclear Reactor Proposal, ” there is indeed some opposition. Just predictable, small and tedious opposition…

AP story in The Examiner:

SOLOMONS, Md. — An advocacy group says a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant is unnecessary and dangerous.Members of the Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition planned to testify at a hearing Monday by the Maryland Public Service Commission on plans for a third reactor at the plant in Lusby in southern Maryland. The commission has scheduled a series of hearings this month on the proposal by Constellation Energy Group.

Allison Fisher with Washington, DC-based Public Citizen says state approval would open the door to construction before the reactor design is fully scrutinized and licensed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Opponents also plan to argue that a new plant would not be safe from a catastrophic accident or an attack by terrorists.

Unnecessary? From The Washington Post, “Threat of Power Shortages Generating New Urgency,” February 3, 2008:

Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities say, it could become something even worse: scarce.

With its humming data centers and air-conditioned mansions, the region is using 18 percent more electricity than in 2001. And as demand has gone up, so have prices. Some homeowners have seen their rates jump by half or more.

Utility and government officials say the region has to face the idea that its demand for electricity could overtake the supply. In a little more than three years, they say, lights could flicker off in rolling blackouts.

Don’t suppose a rolling blackout might pose any sort of public health/public safety risk…

And, look, nothing is SAFE from a terrorist attack. That’s sort of one of the points of terrorism. You can only minimize the risk and the consequences.

P.S. The original WaPo story about the Calvert Cliffs project referred to the deadly accident at Three Mile Island. The Post corrected the mistake today: “An Aug. 4 Metro article incorrectly described the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Although it was the most serious accident in the operating history of U.S. commercial nuclear plants, it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or the nearby community, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

Notwithstanding the anti-energy activism mentioned below, seems like higher energy prices have made the public receptive not just to more OCS drilling, but to nuclear power as well. From today’s Washington Post, the lead story on the Metro section, “Little Outcry on Nuclear Reactor Proposal.”

As Maryland regulators begin hearings tonight on a proposed third nuclear reactor in Calvert County, one element in the historically raucous debate over nuclear power is notably absent: widespread opposition.

The passionate anti-nuclear protests of the 1970s and ’80s have largely yielded in Washington and its suburbs to alarm over rising fuel prices, global warming and a lack of quick, easy solutions to quench the thirst for power.

This region could be a testing ground for the so-called nuclear renaissance. As the Public Service Commission starts a month of hearings on Constellation Energy Group’s initial application to add a third nuclear plant at its Calvert Cliffs site 50 miles southeast of Washington, Dominion Virginia Power, which supplies all of Northern Virginia’s electricity, is pressing ahead with plans to expand its reactors southwest of Fredericksburg.

As Constellation Energy notes, in March 2000 the Calvert Cliffs plant was the first plant in the United States to earn 20-year extensions of its operating licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has the application and related materials for the Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 proposal available here.