NRC Commissioners reject France's bid to build wholly-owned reactor in Maryland

On March 11, 2013, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected an appeal by UniStar Nuclear Corporation which is wholly-owned by France's state-owned nuclear utility Electricite de France (EdF) to reconsider an earlier NRC licensing board decision to reject the application to build a new Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) in Lusby, MD.  The Commission vote effectively terminates UniStar's combined construction and operation application based on a prohibition by the United States Atomic Energy Act of foreign ownership and control of US nuclear reactors.  Originally, the new reactor application had been submitted to the NRC through the joint partnership in UniStar by Annapolis-based Constellation Energy and Edf.  Constellation Energy withdrew from the partnership in December 2012 over its unwillingness to gamble $800 million of its own money to finance a U.S. Department of Energy federal loan guarantee of $7.8 billion dollars.  EdF has been unable to find a U.S. domestic electric utility to join it in the financial quick sand of new reactor construction.

See Beyond Nuclear press release