Tell DOE and Congress: No taxpayer loans for French government nukes!

October 27, 2010

It's official: Constellation Energy wanted out of the Calvert Cliffs-3 nuclear reactor project so bad that last night they agreed to sell their 50% share of it to Electricite de France (EDF) for $140 million, plus EDF will give back about $100 million in stock it owns in Constellation. Here is a Baltimore Sun story on the deal. Most other major newspapers have covered the deal too.

In other words, Constellation thinks the $240 million or so it's getting from EDF is worth more than 60 years of electricity sales from a $10+ billion nuclear power plant. That should tell you something about nuclear power's economic viability when ratepayers aren't forced to subsidize new reactors.

But it's not clear our public officials are getting the message. We can change that by acting now.

Some Maryland politicians--like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer--and a lot of nuclear industry advocates, are hoping EDF can somehow resurrect Calvert Cliffs-3 and the entire nuclear "renaissance," which is crumbling before their eyes. They're even hoping EDF will still get, and accept, the $7.5 Billion loan the Department of Energy promised before Constellation backed out of the project!

But Electricite de France is exactly what its name sounds like: it's part of the French government.

 Why on earth should U.S. taxpayers provide a loan to the French government to build dangerous, dirty and extraordinarily expensive nuclear reactors in the U.S.? The answer, of course, is we shouldn't. Indeed, we shouldn't be giving taxpayer loans to any nuclear company!

If you agree, please send your letter now below. It will go to Energy Secretary Chu, loan guarantee program chief Jonathan Silver, and your members of Congress. Feel free to edit the sample letter to add your own concerns.

And please ask your friends and colleagues to take action too, and please forward this action to your organization's e-mail lists.

Here is the link: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4558

Read more:
http://media.causes.com/ribbon/933448