(Reuters) – BP Plc won a court order keeping several potentially damaging emails out of a scheduled trial to determine responsibility for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Wednesday’s ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan in New Orleans came a day after U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier rejected the oil company’s effort to keep evidence about settlements it had already reached out of the trial.

The rulings came as Barbier prepares to preside on February 27 over a non-jury trial to assign blame for the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 people and caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Plaintiffs include individuals and businesses, represented by a plaintiffs’ steering committee that had sought to introduce the email evidence, as well as states and the U.S. government.

The main corporate defendants include BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd and Halliburton Co, which provided cementing services for the Macondo oil well. Anadarko Petroleum Corp, one of BP’s partners in the well, is also involved in the trial.

Shushan granted BP’s request to exclude as hearsay several 2009 emails among Anadarko employees about tropical storm damage to another Transocean rig that had been under contract to BP.

In one email, an Anadarko employee expressed disappointment that BP had not disclosed some information related to the damage, prompting another to respond: “Bummer. I’m amazed that they did not tell us about this.”

Shushan also granted BP’s and Transocean’s request to keep out a June 2010 email from Halliburton employee Ryan Haire questioning their reported findings regarding some tests, saying he had no personal knowledge of those findings.

The judge also granted Halliburton’s request to exclude an email from a BP geologist to a colleague in February 2010, offering “thanks for the shitty cement job.”

Halliburton contended that the email was no more than a casual, tasteless joke made by one friend to another. Shushan concluded that there was no showing that the email was a “business record” of the cement work that could be introduced into evidence.

Barbier had on Tuesday ruled in Halliburton’s favor on whether evidence of BP’s settlements with Anadarko and other companies was admissible at trial.

Halliburton had said such evidence could show the settling companies’ potential bias in BP’s favor, while BP had countered that they were irrelevant to establishing liability.

Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive, said on Tuesday that he was prepared to settle the entire case on reasonable terms, but would otherwise go to trial.

The London-based company also reported a higher quarterly profit and raised its dividend.

BP has set aside roughly $42 billion for spill costs. Lucy Haskins, a Barclays Capital analyst, wrote on Wednesday that the cost could top $60 billion if BP were found grossly negligent.

The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.

(Reporting By Jonathan Stempel in New York)

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HELENA, Mont. – The battle over a 57-year-old Jesus statue at a northwest Montana ski resort escalated Wednesday with a new federal lawsuit arguing that the Forest Service needs to remove the relic from its mountaintop perch.

The legal challenge from a Wisconsin-based group of atheists and agnostics follows a decision last week by the Forest Service to reverse an original decision to reject a new permit for the statue, which occupies a 25-by-25 foot patch of land at Whitefish Mountain Resort. Its appearance in the middle of the woods has long mystified skiers as they cruise down a popular run.

The Forest Service initially decided last fall that case law was stacked against having such a statue on public land, but officials argued in its revised decision that the historic nature of the statue allowed for its continued placement. In recent months, the agency has been flooded with nearly 100,000 comments, mostly in support of the six-foot tall statue.

The statue was originally conceived by World War II veterans who saw similar shrines while fighting in the mountains of Europe.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation argued in their lawsuit that the Forest Service is unconstitutionally sanctioning the Catholic statue maintained by the Knights of Columbus. The religious nature of the statue has been made clear in special-use permit applications since the 1950s, the group said.

“The continued presence of the statue of Jesus Christ, intended as a religious shrine, gives the unmistakable appearance of governmental endorsement of religion, as does the defendant’s orchestrated justification for maintaining a religious monument on public land,” the foundation said in its lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Missoula.

Several out-of-state social conservative and Christian groups have lined up with promises to help defend the statue in court. They have argued that the statue doesn’t convey a government endorsement of religion, and have said the Forest Service made the correct decision when it decided to re-authorize a special use permit.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian group that engages in legal fights over cultural issues, said it will seek to enter the case on behalf of those who believe such a statue represents the history and heritage of the region.

“It’s clear this legal challenge represents the latest move in a troubling pattern designed to remove any religious reference from our history, a tactic that we believe ultimately will fail in the federal court system,” ACLJ lawyer Jay Sekulow said in a statement.

The Forest Service didn’t return a request for comment on Wednesday.

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HARARE, Zimbabwe – Conservationists in Zimbabwe said Wednesday round-the-clock efforts to save a baby elephant, separated from his mother on a busy highway, have failed. The six-week-old calf who has been hand fed for three weeks has died, apparently from pneumonia.

Conservation expert Gordon Putterill said that elephants are notoriously difficult to hand rear, unlike other wild animals. The baby calf was named Kunda, or Triumph in the local Shona language, for his determination to survive after he was found alone on the highway, he said.

Kunda’s mother may have been injured by a truck after the herd fled from a busy trucking highway in northwestern Zimbabwe, uncharacteristically leaving him behind, trackers said. The herd’s tracks led deep into the thick bush several miles (kilometers) away from where the baby calf was found.

With shoulders that measured just 2 feet 9 inches (80 centimeters) across, Putterill said Kunda touched the hearts of all those who tried to save him.

Kunda gained more than 40 pounds (20 kilograms) while in human care to reach about 200 pounds (100 kilograms) in weight, Putterill said. But then he got diarrhea despite receiving specialized soy milk, palm and coconut oil derivatives and nutrients prescribed by top veterinarians in eastern and southern Africa. The veterinarians, however, had warned that it was rare for young elephants to survive without a mother.

“The poor little guy looked so frail,” said Putterill, a veteran game ranger based at the Mwanga Lodge conservancy about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Harare.

The stomach condition sapped Kunda’s strength but he recovered. Soon after, though, his temperature soared and he began breathing noisily as pneumonia set it in.

Kunda was fed and given medication intravenously but his “vital signs” deteriorated and he died peacefully in his sleep, Putterill said.

Kunda had very little control of his small trunk but, like human babies, “sampled new things with his mouth,” Putterill said.

“Had his mother been feeding him, he would have been boosted by her antibodies,” he said.

Kunda snored at night, played in water, squealed when he was frustrated, didn’t want to be alone in his new environment and liked people around him. The calf had a character all his own that deeply affected his human helpers.

“Kunda became an ambassador for elephant conservation. One must not give up on trying to help orphaned and vulnerable wildlife despite the heartbreaks,” he said.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bidders will be able to buy fine art, a vacation in the Maldives, or an internship with designer Donna Karan and help the planet at the same time in Christie’s annual Green Auction, which is expected reap millions for environmental causes.

Proceeds from the third annual auction on April 11, which raised nearly a combined $5 million its first two years, will benefit four environmental charities — Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Central Park Conservancy and Conservation International.

“We must all take responsibility to protect the natural world for future generations,” said philanthropist and environmentalist Susan Rockefeller a co-chair of the event, adding the auction conveys a message about the relevance and necessity to conserve the planet’s finite resources.

David Rockefeller, Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter and actress Salma Hayek are other co-chairs of the auction.

Proceeds from the event will be directed toward each organization’s water-conservation projects, according to Christie’s, which was set to announce the auction this week.

“Our ocean waters, which cover 70 percent of this blue planet, are hovering on the brink of an irreversible collapse, with 90 percent of the ocean’s big fish gone,” said Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless.

“Luckily, history and science show us that our oceans can rebound if we put in place and enforce sensible policies,” he added in a statement.

People not able to attend the invitation-only auction can bid in a concurrent online auction, which will run from March 29 to April 19. It will feature hundreds of items including art, fashion, travel and once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

In previous Green Auctions bidders have paid as much as $100,000 to spend a day with former President Bill Clinton or a trip to Hollywood to attend the Oscar parties and $26,000 for a one-hour tennis lesson with John McEnroe.

Past sales have also featured a backstage meeting with Lady Gaga and artwork by prominent contemporary artists.

Other artists and celebrities donating works of art or experiences will be announced in the coming weeks. An interactive campaign at Facebook.com/ABidtoSavetheEarth, includes a video contest and a chance to win tickets to the auction.

As in past years Christie’s is waiving all fees associated with the event.

(Editing by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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–
It seems the general public just can’t make up its mind about the existence of man-made climate change. Rather than steadily increasing or decreasing over the last decade, the U.S. public’s concern over our warming planet has jumped up and down, according to Gallup polls. But what exactly is driving this seesawing of opinions on climate change?

The level of public concern about this global issue is mostly influenced by the mobilization efforts of political leaders and advocacy groups, new research shows.

“Public opinion regarding climate change is likely to remain divided as long as the political elites send out conflicting messages on this issue,” lead researcher Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said in a statement.

To come to their conclusions, Brulle and his colleagues aggregated data from 74 separate national surveys conducted between January 2002 and December 2010. The surveys asked 84,086 respondents to gauge the level of threat they attributed to climate change (some of the surveys used different words to describe the phenomenon, such as global warming and the greenhouse effect). The researchers used this information to create a “climate change threat index,” which assigned a numerical value to the public’s concern for each quarter of the year.

Next, they developed a list of measures to evaluate the five factors they believed should account for the changing levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, positions of political elites and efforts by advocacy groups.

For example, to examine the influence of advocacy, the researchers counted the number of stories on climate change in environmental and conservative magazines, as well as the number of New York Times mentions of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” between 2002 and 2010.

The researchers also looked at several additional control variables that could possibly influence public concern about the environment, such as the unemployment rate and the gross domestic product (if the public is highly concerned with these economic issues, they would be less likely to worry about climate change).

After plugging all this information into computer models, they found that access to scientific information has a minimal effect on the public’s opinion about climate change, while weather extremes have no noticeable effect whatsoever (which slightly contrasts with a 2011 study). Media coverage seems to exert an important influence, but the researchers conclude that this coverage is inextricably tied to other factors, such as political opinions and the state of the economy.

With the critical factors now in hand, the researchers sought to create a narrative to explain the major shifts in public opinion — which occurred in 2004, 2007 and 2010, where 26 percent, 41 percent and 28 percent of Gallup poll respondents, respectively, stated they “worried a great deal” about climate change. (Since 1990, this percentage has never gone higher than 41 percent, and has only once gone below 26 percent, when it dropped to 24 percent in the late 1990s.)

Between 2006 and 2007, the researchers note, key Republicans and Democrats worked together to advocate climate change legislation. Around the same time, “An Inconvenient Truth” hit theaters and subsequently earned an Academy Award, while the economy remained relatively stable.

But starting in 2008, Republican anti-environmental voting increased progressively, hitting its peak in 2010. Additionally, media coverage of Al Gore’s documentary faded, and the 2008 financial collapse caused unemployment to increase and the GDP to decline.

The researchers conclude that any communication strategy to raise awareness about climate change must be coupled with a broader political strategy.

“Political conflicts are ultimately resolved through political mobilization and activism,” the researchers write in their study, published online Feb. 3 in the journal Climate Change. “Further efforts to address the issue of climate change need to take this into account.”

• Earth in the Balance: 7 Crucial Tipping Points
• Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming
• Blue Marble: Looking Back at Earth From Space

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(Reuters) – Trace amounts of a radioactive element found in fish near the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have now been found in bass in an opposite corner of the state, apparently clearing the plant of any tie to the contamination, a state health official said.

Initial testing took place after Entergy Corp.’s Vermont Yankee, located in the southeastern town of Vernon, reported in 2010 that radioactive material had leaked into nearby groundwater.

Low levels of Strontium-90, an isotope produced by nuclear reactions, were found in fish caught in August where groundwater from the plant runs into the Connecticut River, state authorities said.

Now, new tests of bass caught 150 miles away in northwestern Vermont and outside the area affected by the plant’s groundwater show similar levels of Strontium-90, said William Irwin, chief of the Vermont Health Department’s radiological division.

The likely source, rather than Vermont Yankee, is residue from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union in 1986, he said.

“These are very very tiny amounts of radioactivity,” Irwin told Reuters on Tuesday. “They were very close to being non-detectable.”

Despite state efforts to close Vermont Yankee, a federal judge has ruled that the 40-year-old plant can remain open because the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sole jurisdiction over radioactivity and health concerns.

(Reporting by Jason McLure; Editing By Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Johnston)

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LONDON – BP PLC has raised its quarterly dividend by 14 percent after posting double-digit gains in profit and revenue in the last three months of 2011 despite further big payments to compensate for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP also said Tuesday that it expects to complete payments to the Gulf of Mexico Trust Fund this year to cover its liability for damage from the massive blowout of the Macondo well in April 2010.

For the three months ending Dec. 31, BP reported a profit of $7.69 billion, up 38 percent from the $5.57 billion posted a year earlier. Revenue was up 15 percent at $96.3 billion.

Replacement cost profit, a closely watched industry measure, was 65 percent higher at $7.6 billion.

“2012 will be a year of increasing investment and milestones as we build on the foundations laid last year,” said CEO Bob Dudley.

“As we move through 2013 and 2014, we expect financial momentum will build as we complete payments into the Gulf of Mexico Trust Fund, restore high-value production and bring new projects on stream.”

For the full year, BP reported a profit of $39.8 billion compared to a loss of $3.7 billion in 2010; replacement cost profit was $23.9 billion compared with a loss of $4,914 million in the previous year.

And as of Dec. 31, the cumulative charges paid from the Gulf Trust fund amounted to $14.5 billion.

The hike in the quarterly dividend, to 8 cents per share, is the first increase since BP resumed paying dividends a year ago.

“The dividend is still far from the historical heady heights, however, whilst the ongoing fallout from the Gulf of Mexico spill is a distraction,” said Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown. “More positively, the fund put aside to finance these claims seems sufficient, whilst further planned divestments will enable BP to focus more strategically on higher growth opportunities.”

BP shares were up 0.3 percent in early trading in London at 4.91 pounds.

“It was good to see a dividend increase with the results and it is a good sign of confidence in the improving operational performance,” said Tony Shephard, analyst at Charles Stanley Co., who rated the shares as “hold.”

“BP’s share valuation is low relative to the other oil and gas majors but it still faces uncertainty over the Gulf of Mexico tragedy.”

BP faces its day in court in New Orleans on Feb. 27 with the opening of a limitation and liability trial over the spill.

BP PLC, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton Co. have been fighting each other over who was responsible for causing the blowout, which was finally halted in July, 2010. U.S. investigators have said that BP bears ultimate responsibility for the spill, but has faulted all three companies to some degree.

“We continue to believe that BP will settle sooner rather than later given the U.S. presidential election and we see a 50 percent chance this will occur in the next few weeks,” said Stuart Joyner, analyst at Investec Securities.

BP has reached settlements with some of its partners and contractors including $4 billion from Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which had a 25 percent stake in the well: $1.1 billion from MOEX, which had a 10 percent stake; and $75 million from Weatherford International Ltd. which supplied casing components.

“As I have said before, we are prepared to settle if we can do so on fair and reasonable terms, but equally, if this is not possible, we are preparing vigorously for trial,” Dudley said.

BP says it currently has five deepwater rigs working on BP-operated fields in the Gulf of Mexico plus an appraisal well. It expects to have three more rigs working in the Gulf by the end of the year.

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LONDON (Reuters) – BP said it was preparing “vigorously” for lawsuits related to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which are due to start later this month, as it unveiled a rise in fourth-quarter earnings boosted by higher oil prices and one-off gains.

Chief Executive Bob Dudley said on Tuesday BP was ready to settle on “fair and reasonable terms” but added he was also ready to fight.

The comments came as the company unveiled fourth-quarter results which showed its estimate for the total cost of the spill rose by $1.8 billion in 2011 to $43 billion. Some analysts think the final figure could be much higher.

The increased estimate reflected higher costs of shoreline clean up, which BP said was now largely complete, and a new $500 million charge related to legal costs beyond 2012.

BP had already set aside over $1 billion to pay its lawyers, suggesting the disaster will end up a major boon for attorneys.

The London-based oil giant said it faced around 600 civil lawsuits from people in states as far away as South Carolina and Kentucky, as well as litigation from the government and Gulf Coast states.

Europe’s second-largest oil group by market capitalization said contributions from its partners in the blown-out Macondo well, Anadarko Petroleum and Japan’s Mitsui, would reduce the final bill it faced.

The over $5 billion BP has received has contributed to the $20 billion fund created to compensate those impacted by the United States’ worst-ever offshore oil spill, and will allow BP to end its own payments into the fund in 2012, a year earlier than expected.

Progress in meeting the costs of the spill allowed BP to announce an increase in its dividend, which had been cut at the height of the spill in 2010.

BP lifted the quarterly payout to 8 cents a share from 7 cents, backed by strong cashflows due to higher oil price.

BP said its replacement cost (RC) net profit rose 65 percent compared to the same period last year, to $7.61 billion in the quarter, boosted by a $4 billion contribution from Anadarko.

Stripping out one-offs, the result rose 14 percent to $4.99 billion, in line with an I/B/E/S consensus forecast of $4.89 billion. Rival Royal Dutch Shell Plc reported an 18 percent rise in underlying profits in the quarter while industry leader Exxon Mobil only managed a 2 percent rise.

BP’s muted increase was despite a lower than expected tax rate, and a 26 percent rise in the Brent crude price in the quarter compared to the same period of 2010.

BP shares traded up 0.4 percent at 492 pence at 3:40 a.m. ET, outstripping a 0.1 percent rise in the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index.

(Editing by Mark Potter)

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BEIJING – China announced Monday it will prohibit its airlines from paying European Union charges on carbon emissions, ratcheting up a global dispute over the cost of combatting climate change.

The charges are aimed at curbing emissions of climate-changing gases but governments including China, the United States and Russia oppose them. The ratings agency Fitch warned in December the conflict could spiral into a global trade dispute.

The Chinese air regulator said China’s carriers are barred from paying the charges or other fees without government permission, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It said Beijing will consider unspecified measures in response to protect Chinese companies.

There was no indication there would be any immediate impact on flights between China and Europe or penalties for Chinese airlines. The charges took effect in January but money will not be collected until next year.

The dispute highlights Beijing’s complicated status in global climate efforts.

China is the biggest source of climate-changing gases but as a developing country is exempt from Kyoto Protocol emission limits. Owners of Chinese power plants and factories have received billions of dollars from a European system that pays developing countries to curb emissions but Beijing has resisted binding limits.

Under the European system, airlines flying to or from Europe must obtain certificates for carbon dioxide emissions. They will get free credits to cover most flights this year but must buy or trade for credits to cover the rest.

“China objects to the EU’s decision to impose the scheme on non-EU airlines,” Xinhua quoted a statement by the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying.

The European Union ambassador to Beijing, Markus Ederer, defended the charges as consistent with Europe’s efforts to be a “green leader” in curbing climate change and said they treat European and foreign carriers equally.

Ederer said it was too early to consider questions such as whether Chinese carriers might be compelled to pay. He said EU regulations include a provision to exempt carriers from countries with “equivalent measures” to curb carbon emissions.

“We are ready to engage in a discussion on recognizing the equivalent measures which would then exempt those airlines of those countries from the necessary dues that would have to be paid,” he said at a previously scheduled news conference on EU relations with China.

Ederer said that with free credits taken into account, the added cost per passenger on a flight from Beijing to Brussels, the EU capital, would be 17.50 yuan or 1.90 euros ($2.70).

“I leave it to you to make a judgment on whether this is too much for saving the Earth, combating climate change and making headway together,” he said.

Environmentalists welcomed the European program, one of the most far-reaching measures adopted by any government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Although only 3 percent of total human-caused carbon emissions come from aircraft, aviation is the fastest-growing source of carbon pollution.

U.S. airlines, supported by governments including China and India, filed a legal challenge to the charges but the EU’s highest court upheld them in December.

Beijing could have unusually strong leverage in a possible dispute because its state-owned airlines carry large numbers of Chinese and other Asian tourists to Europe. Any disruption would hurt Europe’s travel industry when the continent is struggling with a debt crisis and high unemployment.

The International Air Transport Association has criticized the charges as “market distorting.” It says the EU should negotiate through the International Civil Aviation Organization to reach a global agreement.

IATA, which represents about 240 airlines that carry 84 percent of global air traffic, estimates the new rules will cost airlines up to 900 million euros ($1.2 billion) this year and rise to 2.8 billion euros in 2020.

Ederer said the EU was open to discussing the issue through ICAO.

___

Civil Aviation Administration of China (in Chinese): http://www.caac.gov.cn

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(Reuters) – The risk to public health from a severe nuclear power plant accident in the United States is “very small” because reactor operators should have time to prevent core damage and reduce the release of radioactive materials, U.S. nuclear regulators said in a study on Wednesday.

The study comes almost a year after the disaster in Japan in March when an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing reactor fuel meltdowns and radiation releases.

“Successful implementation of existing mitigation measures can prevent reactor core damage or delay or reduce offsite releases of radioactive material,” the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in the study.

“As a result, the calculated risks of public health consequences from severe accidents modeled in the severe accident study) are very small,” the NRC said.

The study found there was “essentially zero risk” to the public of early fatalities due to radiation exposure following a severe accident. The long-term risk of dying from cancer due to radiation exposure after an accident was less than one in a billion and less than the U.S. average risk of dying from other causes of cancer, which is about two in one thousand.

The study, called the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA), looked at the radiological health consequences for potential severe accidents at Exelon Corp’s Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and Dominion’s Surry nuclear plant in Virginia.

The NRC said it picked those two sites because Peach Bottom is representative of the nation’s General Electric boiling water reactor designs and Surry is representative of the Westinghouse pressurized water reactor designs.

About a third of the 104 operating nuclear units in the United States are boiling water reactors and about two-thirds are pressurized water reactors. Nuclear power provides about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

As part of its study, the NRC looked at the possibility of a station blackout, or loss of power, caused by an earthquake or other seismic activity. The loss of power at Fukushima prevented operators from pumping water around the reactor fuel, which allowed the uranium rods to overheat, meltdown and release radiation.

On Tuesday, the NRC told nuclear plant operators in the central and eastern United States to start using a new seismic model to reassess the potential for earthquakes in their area.

In August, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook two reactors at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia, shutting the facility for about three months. That earthquake caused only minor damage to the plant and did not lead to the release of radiation.

WORST CASE SCENARIO

In the worst case scenario with an earthquake causing a station blackout, the study found that core damage could begin in 1 to 3 hours and reactor vessel failure could begin in about 8 hours. The NRC said that was possibly enough time to allow a plant operator to restore core cooling and prevent vessel failure.

If core cooling is not restored, the NRC said containment failure and radiological release could begin at about 8 hours for Peach Bottom and at 25 hours for Surry.

The NRC noted that the availability of portable diesel driven pumps to move water through the reactor core to cool the fuel would be “especially helpful” in mitigating the consequences of a severe accident.

The NRC said this study, which has been in the works since at least 2007, updates decades of research by the NRC, the nuclear power industry and the international nuclear energy research community on severe reactor accident phenomena, including the industry upgrades since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The NRC noted all of the accident scenarios in the latest SOARCA study progress more slowly and release much less radioactive material than a previous severe accident study in 1982.

The NRC said the SOARCA study was nearing completion when the Fukushima accident occurred. Fukushima had many similarities with some of the Peach Bottom severe accident scenarios, the NRC said.

Some of the nation’s biggest nuclear power operators include units of Exelon, Entergy Corp, Duke Energy, Progress Energy and Dominion.

(Reporting By Scott DiSavino; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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