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Constellation Energy may soon add a third nuclear reactor to Calvert Cliffs power plant in Southern Maryland. As soon as the company secures federal funding for the project, they plan to break ground — possibly by the end of the year.

Gov. O’Malley toured the plant on Thursday and spoke in support of the project, calling it a solution to Maryland’s pending energy crisis, expected as early as 2011 if generation capacity is not boosted. There’s one flaw in that solution, however.

If the new reactor gets the green light, it will take a minimum of eight years until it is up and running. So even if construction begins this year, we will be five years into the energy crisis before any relief comes. What happens to our BGE bills in the meantime?

Ignoring that problem, many people still have objections to building another nuclear reactor in Maryland. Opposition to this particular reactor has a long history, starting even before a proposal was submitted. Although the reactor will create jobs, it is expensive to build. And although it will likely lower the consumer’s energy costs, it will create radioactive waste in the process.

I grew up within a 30-mile radius of a nuclear plant and adjusted to its presence at an early age. There’s nothing like opening the phone book and seeing a map outlining — in not so many words — the radii of who would live, die, or just be horribly mutated when the alarms sounded. Thankfully they never did. The power plant was the site of many school fields trips and a familiar part of the landscape.

So for me, nuclear power is not so much of an issue. How do you feel about it? Yea or nay on the new reactor?

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