ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is bursting out of its headquarters in the box-store, strip-mall northwestern suburbs of Washington. Buses shuttle among four structures where the commission has leased overflow space, but that’s not enough to relieve the feel of a college that badly underestimated the size of its incoming freshman class. Portions of the main cafeteria are partitioned off before and after lunch to form makeshift conference rooms. The actual conference rooms are off limits because they’ve been pressed into service as offices. The commission’s beleaguered staffers call the cause of all this uproar ‘the tsunami.’ It’s been 25 years since a new nuclear power plant was licensed in the United States, but applications started arriving again in 2007, spurred by incentives launched during President George W. Bush’s administration. By the end of this year, the Energy Department expects to have applications in hand for 31 new reactors. Fifty-two years after the first American commercial nuclear-power generator opened at Shippingport, Pa., 104 units in 31 states produce about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. The licenses being sought would increase generating capacity by about 20 percent. To accommodate the demand, the NRC stuffed […]