Nuclear accidents made Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima household words. But how many people know about Calvert Cliffs, which has been operating quietly on the Chesapeake Bay since the mid-1970s?
Calvert Cliffs generates 1,756 MW of power, equal to 38% of Maryland’s needs and representing more than three-quarters of the state’s carbon-free generation. Yet nuclear power is often ignored in discussions about getting to net-zero carbon emissions, according to a new coalition, Nuclear Powers Maryland.
Led by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the American Nuclear Society and Exelon Generation, the coalition’s goal “is really to educate and advocate for nuclear in the state,” said spokeswoman Anne Larimer Hart, when asked what the group seeks to achieve. There is “no specific [legislation] at present.”
The coalition introduced itself Tuesday with a webinar and the launch of a petition drive supporting nuclear power’s role in addressing climate change while warning that “opponents continue to undermine nuclear power, which could put this valuable carbon-free energy resource at risk and drag us backward in the transition to clean energy.”
It also released the results of a survey of 600 “media-attentive and engaged voters” statewide and found that while 91% say it’s important for state officials to reduce carbon emissions, including 74% of Republicans, little more than half said they are familiar with Calvert Cliffs, which is jointly owned by Exelon and Électricité de France (EDF).
Joining NEI CEO Maria Korsnick on the kickoff Zoom meeting were Marilyn Kray, Exelon’s vice president of nuclear strategy and development, and officials of two Maryland-based companies: James Howe, vice president of government relations at uranium enrichment company Centrus Energy, and Clay Sell, CEO of X-energy, a nuclear reactor and fuel design engineering company.
“In order for Maryland to achieve its own stated clean energy aspirations, it cannot get there without continued operation of the Calvert Cliffs plant and without building additional new nuclear plants here in Maryland,” Sell said. Calvert Cliffs is licensed until 2034 (Unit 1) and 2036 (Unit 2).
In October, the Department of Energy selected X-energy and TerraPower, of Bellevue, Wash., to build two advanced nuclear reactors in public-private partnerships under its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). TerraPower, the creation of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, will demonstrate the sodium‐cooled Natrium fast reactor, on which it has partnered with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
X-energy will build a four-unit plant based on its Xe-100 reactor design, a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that can produce 320 MW of electricity for baseload or load-following and 800 MW of thermal output that could be used for industrial heat applications, such as desalination and hydrogen production.
X-energy announced Monday that it had signed the ARDP Cooperative Agreement, under which DOE will invest about $1.23 billion in the company’s project. It will be built in Washington state with Energy Northwest, a consortium of 27 public utility districts and municipalities that operates the Washington Columbia nuclear plant in Richland. Completion is planned for 2027.
Sell said his company’s four-unit design requires only a 22-acre footprint, making it suitable for repurposing retired oil- and coal-fired generators. It will use tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel, which it says can withstand very high temperatures without melting. The company says its “meltdown-proof ‘walk-away’ safety” allows a 400-yard safety perimeter as opposed to the 10-mile emergency planning zone for traditional reactors.
“That gives us a number of unique opportunities that we could seize in Maryland,” he said. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it is involved in “preapplication activities” on X-energy’s reactor. NRC in September approved the final safety evaluation report for NuScale Power’s small modular reactor (SMR), making it the first SMR manufacturer to successfully complete the commission’s design certification application review. (See NRC OKs NuScale’s Small Modular Reactor Design.)
Kray said locating small nuclear reactors at former fossil fuel plants would take advantage of existing transmission lines and substations as well as water sources and plant staff. “You could fit one, or maybe two [small nuclear reactors] in what used to be the host site for a coal plant,” she said.
“The challenge we have is to create incentives and to create a political openness to make that happen,” Korsnick said. An NEI spokeswoman said the trade group is also supporting similar coalitions in Pennsylvania and Illinois.
