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A Calvert County official urged Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) on Friday to continue his support of Constellation Energy Group's merger with a French energy giant and its plans to build a third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby. Board of County Commissioners President Wilson H. Parran (D-Huntingtown) told O'Malley that Maryland is facing an energy shortage and that the third reactor would be a source of much-needed power. Constellation officials have said the reactor would nearly double the plant's capacity. Parran said the project would bring hundreds of jobs to the county, plus tax revenue.

NRC investigations, disgruntled employees, and protests plague Diablo Canyon WHAT DO WE WANT? Last December, PG&E employees at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant were asked to fill out a survey. It was of the "are you happy with your job?" variety. The results overall: many aren't. And the survey is just a hint at a growing rift between employees and management. A copy obtained by New Times shows Diablo Canyon employees were less content than the rest of the PG&E family. The questions were weighted based on the number of favorable responses against the number of unfavorable ones and given a percentage. Companywide, the survey results were 67 percent in the positive on average. At Diablo Canyon it was 57 percent. Of the questions, the one that scored the best with 96 percent favorable was "I am committed to the success of PG&E." Similar questions scored much the same, generally around 70 to 80 percent.

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. said Tuesday it has won a $19.2 million contract to clean up a U.S. Energy Department test facility in upstate New York, the Energy Separation Process Research Unit. URS Corp., which awarded the contract, will help perform the work. The job includes sorting, packaging, loading, rail transport and treatment, as well as disposal of soil, debris and mixed waste. Work will begin immediately, and the project will take an estimated 24 months.

(Ed. Note: Writer Art Hobson is a retired physics professor from the University of Arkansas and an old friend of Santiago Times publisher Steve Anderson. In this article Hobson makes the case for nuclear energy - an issue that is very much in the news in Chile. The Santiago Times respectfully disagrees with Hobson's conclusion that - given the world's current and very urgent climate change plight - there are few alternatives as good as nuclear energy. Hobson's argument may hold for some parts of the world, but not for Chile. Why? Because Chile is different, with more renewable energy potential than almost any other country on earth: huge coastline, dozens of rivers, a remarkable Atacama desert. And because a quantum jump by Chile to wind, solar and run of the river energy sources would show other developing nations the real economic benefits and job creation potential that comes with a truly radical commitment to renewable energy. Chile could and should be a world leader in renewable energy development.

In 1982, the U.S. government formally accepted the dirty job of finding a place to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste, including spent reactor fuel, which will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Five years later, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to begin seriously investigating a single site--Yucca Mountain, NV--as a permanent geological repository. But earlier this year, with 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel clogging storage facilities at power plants, the Obama administration announced that it would cut Yucca's funding and seek alternatives. Credit: Chris Crisman Allison Macfarlane, a geologist at George Mason University and the editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste, is a leading technical expert on nuclear-waste disposal who recently sat on a National Research Council committee evaluating the Department of Energy's nuclear-power R&D programs. She spoke with David Talbot, Technology Review's chief correspondent, about the future of nuclear waste--and what it means for the future of nuclear power.

The first trainloads of PCB-tainted sludge dredged from the Hudson River will arrive this month and, in the eyes of critics, turn a stretch of West Texas into New York's "pay toilet." They say burying dirt so toxic that General Electric Co. will spend at least six years and an estimated $750 million to dredge it up will create a new mess for future generations to clean up. But for the 15 jobs and bit of money it'll bring local businesses, the folks who live near the site are willing to take the risk, however remote, of tainting the area's groundwater with somebody else's trash.

I grow weary of this constant belittling enveloping this county. What happened to the days of "Hi Neighbor"? We now have a large issue that makes most of us turn on one another. Over what? Money, jobs, maybe's. Churches are torn apart, friendships are destroyed forever. Women cry and wring their hands. Many people don't know where to go or what to do. The majority of people in this county do not want anything to do with this uranium! Check the numbers, please! People write letters pro and con. Some say leave Walter Coles and Henry Bowen alone. * The people trying to stop this are non-progressive and trying to scare everyone.

A decision by the U.S. Department of Energy on whether the United States Enrichment Corp. (USEC) should receive a federal loan guarantee for the American Centrifuge plant in Piketon should come next month, the company says. Advertisement "Based on ongoing discussions with DOE, we expect a decision on a conditional commitment by early August," said Philip G. Sewell, senior vice president of American Centrifuge and Russian HEU. The company has repeatedly said the loan guarantee is essential to keeping the project - which is expected to keep and create thousands of jobs in an area with double-digit unemployment - alive. Sewell said the company is working on a Plan B strategy in case the guarantee is not secured.

Spain's government said Thursday it would allow the country's oldest nuclear reactor to operate beyond its intended 40-year lifespan, reversing a policy of gradually phasing out nuclear power. Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said the Garona plant in northern Spain, which had been designed to function only until 2011 and whose operating permit expires on Sunday, would now be allowed to operate until July 2013. "This was not an easy decision but it is a thought-out decision," he told a news conference, adding the decision would allow for the preservation of jobs in the region at a time of high unemployment.

USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) today announced that it expects the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to make a decision on a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee by early August. A loan guarantee conditional commitment would allow USEC to continue deployment of its American Centrifuge Plant, currently being built in Piketon, Ohio, and would ensure the security of thousands of jobs created across the country by the plant's construction and manufacturing activities. The Company also said that at the direction of its board of directors it is preparing demobilization plans for the American Centrifuge Plant if it does not receive a conditional commitment by early August. USEC announced in February a slowdown in the planned escalation of spending on the project and has stated that a further delay in obtaining a DOE loan guarantee would require the Company to implement further project spending reductions.

THE future for the workforce at Vulcan has become less secure now that it looks certain the Ministry of Defence will not be extending its current contract at its reactor base in Caithness. advertising Barring new commercial work being found, the site is set to go into decommissioning mode in five years' time. Such an outcome would add a fresh headache to the public agencies currently battling to replace the 2000-plus jobs which are to go at the next-door site at Dounreay. As with its defunct civil counterpart, Vulcan will require a workforce to decontaminate and dismantle its redundant plant. It is unclear how many of the 280 employees of site contractor Rolls-Royce would be required for the clean-up. The pressurised water reactor at Vulcan is used to test and trial the propulsion systems used on Britain's fleet of nuclear submarines. Up until recently there were positive noises about the prospects of the MOD extending its £360 million contract beyond 2014. But Royal Navy chief are now believed not to foresee a need for Vulcan to support the proposed next generation of Trident subs.

GE's uranium enrichment venture has completed its license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, staying on schedule with its efforts which are expected to bring more than 500 construction jobs to Castle Hayne as early as 2012. Global Laser Enrichment - a business venture of nuclear power plant builders GE and Hitachi, and uranium miner Cameco - announced Tuesday completion of the venture's license application seeking the NRC's approval to build the world's first commercial uranium enrichment facility to use laser technology.

General Electric Co., Hitachi Ltd. and Cameco Corp. plan to seek U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees to help finance a venture that would use lasers to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel. GE Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment said today it completed an application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the world's first commercial uranium enrichment plant to use laser technology. The proposed development in Wilmington, North Carolina, would create as many as 300 permanent engineering and support jobs, as well as employ more than 500 workers during construction, Tammy Orr, chief executive officer of Wilmington- based GE Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment, said today in a telephone interview.

The nuclear power industry has been accused of trying to muscle in on plans to establish a global body to represent the renewable energy industry at a key meeting in Egypt tomorrow. France - a major user and exporter of nuclear technologies - is accused by critics of trying to win the top job inside the renewable organisation so it can move the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) towards being a promoter of "low-carbon" technologies - including atomic power. The talks in Sharm el-Sheikh are already threatening to become a major standoff between Germany and the United Arab Emirates over which country should win the right to have the headquarters of Irena based in its country.

A private company was being paid $300 million by the federal government to clean up radioactive waste at two abandoned Cold War plants in Tennessee when an ironworker crashed through a rotted floor. That prompted a major safety review, which ended up forcing work to an abrupt halt, and the project was shut down for months. The delay and a host of other problems caused cost estimates to rise, eventually hitting $781 million. Now, President Obama's stimulus package is opening a bountiful stream of new funding, and the same contractor, Bechtel Jacobs, is slated to get $118 million to help complete the job.

It was fitting that former Rocky Flats workers and their families got together for their monthly meeting so close to Memorial Day. They are American heroes, said U.S. Rep. Jared Polis. Polis and Sen. Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, each spoke at the group's Saturday afternoon meeting to discuss better treatment for nuclear workers suffering the effects of radiation and chemical exposure. They specifically talked about the Charlie Wolf Act, a recently introduced bill that would make it easier for these workers to get compensation for illnesses they developed as a result of their job.

The U.S. Senate this week confirmed the nominees to fill six high-level positiions at the Dept. of Energy. According to a DOE release, those confirmed included Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman; Under Secretary for Energy Kristina Johnson; Under Secretary for Science Steven Koonin; Scott Blake Harris, general counsel; David Sandalow, asst. secretary for policy and international affairs; and Ines Triay, asst. secretary for environmental management. In a statement distributed by DOE, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, ".The department has set aggressive goals for creating green jobs, addressing our climate crisis and putting the country on a path to energy independence, and these confirmations are an important step toward reaching those goals." Here's the background DOE provided on the political appointees:

Areva North American President Jacques Besnainou is like a starship captain. This past week he went where no reactor vendor CEO has gone before by opening up, unfiltered by corporate PR, to a group of nuclear energy bloggers. The company has claimed it will practice "transparency" in its communication with the public and the press. This week it got a chance to prove it and it did a pretty good job. Despite the fact bloggers are somewhere in the middle of those two groups, they got candid answers to tough questions. In an exclusive interview published only here on the EnergyCollective, Besnainou laid out his views on the nuclear renaissance, recycle spent nuclear fuel, and a big investment in biomass and wind energy in the U.S. Jacques Besnainou2 It must have been quite a challenge for the executive suite in Bethesda, MD, to agree to get wired into the blogsphere. Of course Bensnainou (right) has been blogging himself for a few months via the Areva's blog. However, taking questions live from bloggers themselves is an entirely different matter than tapping out a thoughtful blog post in the quiet of a corner office.

Meanwhile, DOE has moved a press release with some reported highlights of the DOE budget. Here are those: The proposed budget, DOE said: * Cuts funding for programs that aren't needed or aren't as effective as other investments - like more than $200 million in oil and gas company research that the companies can and do fund on their own. * Substantially expands the use of clean, renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure. * Supports the Administration's goal to develop a smart, strong and secure electricity grid. * Helps restore America's leadership in scientific research and innovation - including transformative science that can lead to a new generation of clean energy jobs. * Makes significant investments in low-emissions plug-in and hybrid vehicles, nuclear energy, and clean coal technologies, as part of the Obama Administration's aggressive effort to reduce greenhouse gas production. * Supports the ongoing security of our weapons stockpile, continued efforts at nuclear non-proliferation and ongoing environmental cleanup and legacy management as part of the Department's long-term stewardship responsibilities.

Many in sparsely populated Andrews County in West Texas embraced the idea of opening up a radioactive waste site there. They saw it as a chance to bring much needed jobs and tax dollars into the remote, sparsely populated West Texas county. Now, they're not so sure after the waste company asked the county to go a step further and come up with $75 million to pay for a disposal area at the site. Voters in the county on the New Mexico border will decide Saturday whether to help Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists fund construction of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. If passed, the measure would give county officials the ability to issue bonds to purchase $75 million of Waste Control Specialists' assets and lease them back to the company.