Nuclear powerNRC rejects plan for Maryland nuclear reactor

A plan to build a third nuclear reactor in southern Maryland was postponed last week as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) upheld an earlier decision to squash the project.

The operator, UniStar Nuclear Operating Services, had a plan which was rejected last summer by the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. That decision was upheld last Monday by the agency’s five commissioners.

The Washington Times reports that the primary reason for the rejection is the fact that the applicant’s parent company, Electricite de France, is 85 percent owned by the French government.

U.S. law forbids foreign ownership of U.S. nuclear reactors, which means that an American company would need to invest heavily in the project or the NRC would have to redraft its ownership rules.

Those who oppose the project said the decision was a victory for the effort  to turn the U.S. away from nuclear energy.

Things got even better for those who oppose the project as Maryland lawmakers approved a plan to build offshore wind-farms on the same day.

“Maryland already has moved on. With this decision, Maryland’s future is clear: It will be based on clean renewable power, not dirty, dangerous and expensive nuclear reactors,” Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, told the Washington Times.

Critics also pointed to the fact that the ruling came on the second anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Since the meltdown, the United States and  other nations have been cautious when it comes to nuclear energy.

“This decision could not be more timely,” Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear, told the Times.

UniStar is currently pushing for the NRC to change its regulations and the commission is considering the change.

“We agree that, with the passage of time since the agency first issued substantive guidance on the foreign ownership [issue] a reassessment is appropriate,” the commissioners wrote in their seven-page decision.

The NRC is now being praised for revisiting their ownership rules which have not been in almost sixty years.

“Given the global nature of the nuclear world of today, there’s a strong argument to be made for the agency to re-examine its foreign ownership policies. We view the NRC’s directive in that area positively,” Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, told the Times.

Unistar is not ready to give up on the project, which the NRC said it will revisit if an American company gets involved. “We look forward to receipt of the revised guidance [from the NRC] on foreign ownership and hope to participate in that process,” the company told the Times.