When lending institutions are on shaky ground...The financial implications of this might be something y'all - all over the country - can use as a talking point.
How can these power firms, after all, pour $6 to $10 billion into these reactor construction deals if the financial institutions that back their financing are anything but rock solid?
Read and think carefully about the role that Maryland's Public Service Commission might be "pressured" to undertake. If this happens here in Maryland, could it not happen in other states as well? I suspect Maryland could set the precedent for the entire nation, with our states' public utility commissions acting as nuke-pushing enablers - even going so far as to waive regulatory processes (!) for these nuke firms.This "Nukuler Resurgence" is merely a game of dominoes. If Calvert Cliffs goes on board with AREVA's [i.e., EDF, think French government] new double-size, un-tested, un-proven, EXPERIMENTAL EPR design*? The rest of the nuke construction applications are surely to follow, right down the line.
The President's 2005 visit to the initial birth place of this "Nukuler Resurgence," his "pet nuke," Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, which sits on (and, tragically, dumps contamination into) the Chesapeake Bay, just 50 miles outside Wash, DC is likely to set the stage for the other 33 new reactor applications (and more on the horizon) to slide greasily on down the approval process, exactly like a game of dominoes.
So this is why I keep harping on the Calvert Cliffs nuke expansion under consideration by the Maryland Public Service Commission. The power plant owner, Constellation Energy, (i.e., UniStar's baby) is in trouble even hotter than its radionuclide-laden, thermal discharges into the Chesapeake Bay. This is why, if this first nukuler "experiment" can be stopped? The other reactor construction deals are then less likely to experience smooth, easy sailing in their funding and approvals processes.
Stopping the initial nuke reactor construction at Calvert Cliffs is, therefore, absolutely CRITICAL. If this administration's first nukuler "baby" slides on through? We are then far more likely to see a rampant free fall of the rest of the nation's nukuler construction approvals.
See www.safeenergymd.com for more details and to find out how you can help stop the Calvert Cliffs nukuler expansion - the very first in a series of the most deadly game of dominoes this nuked-out nation's ever known.
*EPR experimental test concept courtesy Bob NicholsConstellation in talks to sell out
DANIELLE ULMAN
Daily Record Business Writer