New Nukes

Build it:

On tree-lined bluffs overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, where anti-nuclear activists won a landmark environmental victory 36 years ago, Constellation Energy Group Inc. is engineering atomic power's comeback.

This time, even if there are protests, bulldozers will roll.

That's because the Baltimore-based utility and its allies have found a way around a longstanding regulatory policy they say added a year or more to construction times for nuclear plants.

In April, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to industry demands that it reduce its oversight of initial work at reactor sites. By narrowing its definition of the word "construction" in agency rules, the NRC put off the required public hearings and permits that have waylaid past projects.

Suck it, enviro-weenies!