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4. How is Constellation planning to
bring “trade” workers due to the current
shortage of skills for construction of
nuclear power plants?
We are having a lot of communications
about the need for workers at a skilled
level, such as the electricians, plumbers,
pipefitters, sheet metal workers, and other
skilled workers. It’s a very special trade
that’s needed for those types of activities.
The jobs are 3-5 years long. They’re wellpaying
jobs and there is good reason this
is going to be a natural attraction. We’ll
need robust training programs to make
sure interested parties are trained to do
the work. I think a good pipefitter welder,
nuclear grade, is going to be making
more money than a degreed engineer
for probably a decade because there is
going to be such a shortage and it’s going
to take a particular skill set. So I think
once that starts it’s too difficult to recruit
people just on words, but once the project
starts and the jobs are real I think they
will come really fast.
What we’re doing in particular --
many other companies are doing the same
thing -- we’ve established relationships
with local high schools to recruit students
who don’t really want to go to college so
we can bring them right into the trade.
We do it with both our fossil and nuclear
plants. So a relationship is established
with the local schools. Some of those kids
graduate and go to work in the plant and
they give feedback to the kids that are a
class or two behind in school that it’s a
good place to work, that they get training,
it’s a well paying job, and it’s a great
environment. It promotes the value of
trade; not everyone needs to go to college
to do very well in life. We’re doing that in
New York and we’re doing that in Calvert
County right now.
5. What is the base plant for EPRs to be
constructed in the United States?
The EPR being built by EDF in
Flamanville, France is our base plant.
Because EDF is our partner, we have a
direct transparent data transfer of all of
the Flamanville drawings, analysis and
construction experience. Everything
about Flamanville is directly transferred
to UniStar for consideration of how we
replicate it. In addition, we expect to
reap the benefit of four EPRs that will
be operating ahead of us -- Olkiluoto in
Finland and two in China. It’s to their
benefit as well as ours to get a transfer of
all the lessons learned from Flamanville.
I’d like to think I know a little
bit about nuclear plant construction
because at Braidwood from 1982-1988,
I was the executive overseeing design
and construction, and we saw some
construction techniques that I had never
seen before. EDF, because they never
stopped building nuclear plants, they
kept getting a little better every time they
got to the next plant. That is the closest
real-time optimization of nuclear project
construction that I think we can have. It’s
not a theoretical experience that we’re
drawing on. In fact, some of the senior
people at the Flamanville site, I expect
are going to be at our Calvert Cliffs site
when it’s under construction to bring
great added experience. So we’re hoping
to optimize how we do Calvert Cliffs by
drawing heavily on Flamanville.
6. What efforts (design or construction)
are under way for Calvert Cliffs?
The UniStar team right now is about
20 percent EDF people who have come
over from France and they are working
in Baltimore, Maryland full time. So, we
don’t just get data transfer, we actually
have people who are here working on
developing the plant. The main thing right
now of course is engineering, project
management, and licensing. Once we get
to construction, we want some of these
individuals who were personally involved
in the construction of Flamanville to be
involved in the construction of Calvert
Cliffs because that’s the best way to
get data transfer. When it comes to
operations, there is probably a little less
transfer that we get because the regulatory
framework that we operate under here
with the NRC is a little different than
what the French use. So we’ll have
systems and procedures that we use but
the details, all the licensing individuals
need to be U.S. citizens, so there will be
less EDF involvement in operation. EDF
will have heavy involvement in design,
construction, and testing.
7. How is the political support for
Calvert Cliffs unit 3?
Steny Hoyer, majority leader of the
U.S. House, is from Calvert County, and
Calvert Cliffs is in his district. You can’t get
a more direct connection than that. Then
when you come to the state side, a year
ago when the governor, Martin O’Malley,
was at Calvert Cliffs and he held his press
conference he said new nuclear at Calvert
Cliffs 3 is a necessity for clean and reliable
energy, so we have good support from the
governor. We have good positioning with
the leadership in Congress. We think the
political leadership is going to continue to
come. We also enjoy strong support from
Maryland’s legislative leaders and the
Calvert County Commissioners. We’ve
been through our hearings already, both
the state hearing and NRC hearing, and
there has been no significant intervention
that we’ve had to deal with at all. All of
the public and political support seems to
be pretty solid.
8. Concluding comments?
We’ve gone through a period where
we were unintentionally competing
with each other, competing over loan
guarantees, wondering how much is
going to be there. Now we have to get in
a mode where we are really collaborating,
really cooperating. The first four plants
constructed have to be done right because
they will set the stage for whether we
have a renaissance or a fizzle. I think it’s
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