ML20236T061

Comment Opposing Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Request to Have Operating License Extended for 20 Yrs

ML20236T061
Person / Time
Site:	Calvert Cliffs
Issue date:	07/14/1998
From:	Ochs R MARYLAND SAFE ENERGY COALITION
To:	Craig C NRC
References
FRN-63FR31813 63FR31813-00001, 63FR31813-1, NUDOCS 9807270402
Download: ML20236T061 (2)

Text

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• _" N!W""D July 14,1998 M JUL 22 El 3: 54 /

t Claudia Craig EULES & D.t baOH Nuclear Regulatory Commission US NRC Washington, D.C. 20555

Dear Ms. Craig:

My name is Kay Dellinger and I read a statement from Richard Ochs at the hearing at the H aliday Inn in Solomons, Maryland on July 9,1998 about the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant's request to have their operating license extended for twenty years. One of the moderators asked me to send the NRC a copy of the statement.

The following is the statement from Richard Ochs, President of the Maryland Safe Energy Coalition.

I began the statement by saying that Richard Ochs is the President of the Maryland Safe Energy Coalition and is speaking for the members of that organization in this statement.

"The Maryland Safe Energy Coalition opposes any extension of the operating license for the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. Aside from the constant threat of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown from an aging nuclear plant, which could make a large region permanently uninhabitable, there are other unsolved problems. After spending billions of dollars on research, The Department of Energy has not found a safe, permanent repository for highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Ventings of radioactive l gasses, both accidental and planned, from nuclear plants constantly increase carcinogens in our environment. Nuclear power has prcved to be the most costly form of power generation, even greater than wind and solar power in certain regions, in June of 1996, the Calvert Cliffs plant had to be shut down in the middle of a heat wave, when air conditioners were running full tilt and energy demand was maximal. The plant had become non-operational because the tE,mperature in the deep trench of the Chesapeake Bay, where the plant gets cooling water, had reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit - too hot to cool the plant. Of course, the water going from the plant into the Bay was a lot hotter. I have never seen a study published on the effect of temperature increases on these spawning areas of the female blue crab or migration routes of fish, but we can be sure it doesn't help the health of Bay ecology.

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, While burning fossil fuels is slowly destroying the environment and contributing to an l l alarming rate of species extinction, there are realistic alternatives to expanding both nuclear and fossil fuel power. Nuclear power is less efficient than wind and solar power in California. Even in the East, Amish farmers have been pumping water with windmills for hundreds of years and still run efficient farms without any electricity whatsoever.

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l Page 2 Solar power is competitive in Maryland for half of the year. Other clean power sources include methane fuel from landfills and composted bio-mass.

l Energy conservation and population control are also important alternatives. If everyone would cut their energy use in half, many power plants could be retired right now.

Turning out lights in unoccupied rooms and converting to florescent o halogen light bulbs are two examples of easy ways to save energy and there are dozens of other ways to conserve energy.

Extravagant energy users could be charged on a sliding scale like a progressive tax.

That would discourage central electric heating and cooling of large or poorly insulated houses. The profit from such a surcharge could fund insulation or solar retrofits for consumers wishing to conserve energy. Unfortunately, most energy conservation strategies of utilities have been dropped since utility deregulation has been proposed.

The Public Service Commission needs to require such strategies, backed up by tough new legislation.

Reducing population growth is an essential goal of rational environmental and energy planning. Tax and welfare policies should be reversed to encourage smaller families.

Public funding should be made available for free birth control procedures and products.

Policies that create a large, unsustainable and tortured future population by the coddling of the present generation is neither enlightened nor humanitarian."

Richard Ochs, President Maryland Safe Energy Coalition 1443 Gorsuch Avenue Baltimore, Maryland 21218 410-243-2077 I

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