Skip to main content

New Reactor in MD is a "Moral Imperative"

After touring the Calvert Cliffs Plant yesterday, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley (D) endorsed Constellation Energy's plans to expand the facilities in Lusby, MD.

From The Washington Post,
The governor said the new reactor would help slow rate increases for electricity customers amid rising global demand for energy.

"It is a huge moral challenge and it is a moral imperative given what massive new burning of coal will do to the planet if we don't develop better and cleaner technology, including safer and cleaner nuclear, which is what is . . . planned and talked about in terms of the third reactor," O'Malley said.
In an announcement made at the BCTD Conference last month, Constellation expects to break ground on the new plant by Dec. 2008.

Comments

Anonymous said…
One democrat who understands moral imperative. Now if Obama and Clinton would understand moral imperative and stop their headlong rush into political suicide.
Anonymous said…
Now this is scary. While I support new nukes just about everywhere, as I've advocated before, if nuclear's political acceptance becomes dependent on "global climate change," we are now involved in a highly controversial topic, one that may not resolve itself in our favor.

Frankly, many of the leading advocates of immediate regulations to limit GHG emissions worry me. I suspect their motives and doubt the certainty of the science they invoke.

Let's suppose that the UN and Al Gore are revealed to be wrongheaded - do we want to share the taint?

Moral crusades too often degenerate into demogogary.

Let's sell nuclear on economics, clean air, and imported fossil fuel resource dependency.
Rod Adams said…
Joseph:

I went back and read Governor O'Malley's comment again. He did not focus on GHG, he talked about energy supplies, rate increases and massive damage done by coal burning. You might have interpreted that part to be a global climate change issue, but there are numerous other problems that result from massive amounts of coal burning including acid rain, mountain top removal, mountain stream pollution, fly ash production, and rail congestion.

I tend to agree that there is a moral dimension to energy production - it is immoral to consume food for fuel and immoral to use up all of the very useful carbon stores, even those that seem to be abundant and able to last for a couple hundred years. I hate to think that human society is going to end in just a few hundred years.

That is especially true when one considers that we have such a readily available and better alternative.
Anonymous said…
Good point Ron. I should have read it more carefully.

Still, I am not comfortable being the instrument of someone's moral imperative, even if I agree with their premises. My own decision to become a nuclear engineer arose from my helping to clean up an oil spill on my hometown beach.

A politician's commitment to a "moral imperative" can change with a new set of polling results.

Now making a buck in a fair market by building new nukes is something I can get behind.
Anonymous said…
It is apparent that Areva (the supplier of the EPR to be built at Calvert Cliffs) is committed to nuclear energy whereas GE (the supplier of the ESBWR) is not. Sure, the Dem governor of North Carolina gave GE 25.7 million. Sure, the Dem governor of Maryland supports the Cliffs. But Areva does not seem to be relying on government handouts in ths country, and GE is completely dependent on DOE / GNEP funding for ESBWR, and North Carolina funding for its laser enrichment facility. It's bad when a company is dependent on the public treasury - it' far worse than when a company is dependent on pronouncements of moral imperative from a politician. Of the two, I prefer the moral imperative announcement. In the end, let the free market decide. Unless GE straightens up and gets really committed, there won't be boilers except by Toshiba in South Texas.

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should