Another step to more power

Our Opinion

Friday, Nov. 6, 2009

More approvals will be needed, and more negotiations, but another hurdle was crossed last week when the Maryland Public Service Commission approved the $4.5 billion sale of half of Constellation Energy Group's nuclear assets to Electricite de France, or EDF.

The sale will be a major part of the plans for Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant to build a third reactor. With 49.99 percent ownership of Constellation, EDF will be an investor in the third reactor, at a time when money is short and nuclear reactors are incredibly expensive to build.

Calvert County officials, as well as most state officials, have supported the third reactor from the beginning. After all, it will bring millions of dollars to the state, thousands of temporary jobs during the building process and hundreds of permanent jobs to the county. These are not minimum wage jobs, either. Most are for highly skilled workers, which translates to highly paid.

As this latest approval was being considered, there was plenty of contention to wade through. Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) made waves and upset lots of Calvert residents and officials for slowing the process, making demands that customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric be taken care of. This angered some, comforted others. BGE customers were glad they were being taken seriously. Other county residents wanted to know why O'Malley was not taking the entire state into consideration, and especially our entire county.

The deal that was announced last Friday seeks a compromise: O'Malley wanted every BGE customer to receive a one-time rebate. That demand was met halfway: customers will receive a $100 credit, rather than the $200 O'Malley wanted. Still the governor seems content with the deal and issued a statement calling it "fair and reasonable." Even the Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition acknowledged that BGE customers would benefit from the deal, although it does not support another reactor, which it considers "expensive and unnecessary."

The reality is that BGE customers in the northern end of Calvert County have only recently been given any respect. Those customers suffered power outages, sometimes days-long, for years, and only through the efforts of Calvert officials have those customers begun to receive better customer service.

There are plenty of people in the area who do not want another reactor at Calvert Cliffs, whether it brings money and jobs or not. They know that the plant is storing nuclear waste and there remains to be presented a viable plan for what to do with that waste.

But there is another reality at work here: we, as a society, are using more and more electricity every day, and the generation is not keeping up with demand. We charge our cell phones, our laptops and our handheld games; watch TV; we turn on lights in more rooms than there are people in our households; and we heat and cool our homes throughout the year.

There just isn't enough electricity to keep up with a growing population that has an increasing dependence on electricity. Many people can't even keep a schedule without some sort of electronic device.

That's reality.

Lots of measures are being taken to reduce our usage. More and more green buildings are popping up around the state. Households are embracing more efficient light bulbs. Appliances are becoming more and more efficient.

All of these things are helpful, yet the demand still increases. If we don't find viable ways to produce power, we will be facing brownouts in less than 10 years.

Nuclear power might not be the best option. In fact, the best option is probably a set of solar panels on every building, built into new construction and retrofitted to older homes and businesses. A few solar panels could drastically reduce a building's dependence on the electricity grid. Even if the panels don't erase that dependence altogether, a reduction of drag on the grid benefits all electricity users.

The third reactor is still far into the future for Calvert County, but we're glad to see that dependable power generation is one step closer.