Tag Archives: New Hampshire

How to ban CWIP in Georgia

A one-paragraph law can do it; that’s all it took in New Hampshire to ban Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) after Three Mile Island. OK, plus a state Supreme Court ruling, but that would be easier in Georgia since the New Hampshire Supreme Court already set a precedent of upholding the NH law. After Fukushima, Georgia could ban CWIP and end the new Plant Vogtle construction. The we could get on with building solar.

Here’s the text of the NH law, taken from the NH Supreme Court ruling:

“378:30-a Public Utility Rate Base; Exclusions. Public utility rates or charges shall not in any manner be based on the cost of construction work in progress. At no time shall any rates or charges be based upon any costs associated with construction work if said construction work is not completed. All costs of construction work in progress, including, but not limited to, any costs associated with constructing, owning, maintaining or financing construction work in progress, shall not be included in a utility’s rate base nor be allowed as an expense for rate making purposes until, and not before, said construction project is actually providing service to consumers.”
Simple enough. The Georgia legislature could do it. Knowing the NH CWIP ban caused PSNH to go bankrupt on costs for the Seabrook nuclear plant, Georgia Power might back off on Plant Vogtle rather than have such a law passed.

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What we can learn from no nukes and solartopia of 30 years ago

Why were only 12% of the projected 1000 nuclear plants built in the U.S. by the year 2000? Because of the no nukes movement started in Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977. And because New Hampshire banned CWIP. Here in Georgia in 2012 we can cut to the chase and do what they did that worked.

Harvey Wasserman wrote for The Free Press 13 May 2007, How creative mass non-violence beat a nuke and launched the global green power movement,

Thirty years ago this month, in the small seacoast town of Seabrook, New Hampshire, a force of mass non-violent green advocacy collided with the nuke establishment.

A definitive victory over corporate power was won. And the global grassroots “No Nukes” movement emerged as one of the most important and effective in human history.

It still writes the bottom line on atomic energy and global warming. All today’s green energy battles can be dated to May, 13, 1977, when 550 Clamshell Alliance protestors walked victoriously free after thirteen days of media-saturated imprisonment. Not a single US reactor ordered since that day has been completed.

How effective?
Richard Nixon had pledged to build 1000 nukes in the US by the year 2000. But the industry peaked at less than 120. Today, just over a hundred operate. No US reactor ordered since 1974 has been completed. The Seabrook demonstrations—which extended to civil disobedience actions on Wall Street—were key to keeping nearly 880 US reactors unbuilt.
The only new nukes ordered since then are the ones Georgia Power wants to build at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River, for which Georgia Power customers are already getting billed Construction Work in Progress (CWIP).

Thirty years later, some things haven’t changed: Continue reading →

How and why did New Hampshire ban CWIP?

After years of protests and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, the New Hampshire legislature passed a law that denied the Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH) Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charges before the Seabrook nuclear plant provided electricity to its customers. One of two planned Seabrook reactors did finally go into service in 1990, more than a decade late and far over budget. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled the anti-CWIP law was constitutional, and PSNH went bankrupt in 1988:
the first investor-owned utility since the Great Depression to declare bankruptcy.
Seabrook was the last nuclear reactor built in the United States. Until now. In Georgia. Which has CWIP. Maybe we should change that.

Here’s an excerpt from a corporate history of Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH):

By January 1972 PSNH had decided not only to build a nuclear plant at Seabrook but also to have it consist of two 1,150-megawatt units, to be completed in 1979. PSNH was to own 50 percent of the $1.3 billion project and share the remaining investment with other New England utilities. In January 1974 the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and other regulatory bodies had issued the basic permits, but interveners in the case succeeded in having the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturn these permits. After repeated appeals and rehearings PSNH received its construction permit in July 1976—and experienced its first protest at the planned site.

There followed a decade of other protests at the site, inside regulatory chambers, and in New Hampshire and Washington courtrooms. The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear-power plant in Pennsylvania—to name but one event that triggered concern

Continue reading →

Can Georgia ban Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)?

Georgia Power charges its customers Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) for the nuclear plants it is constructing at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River. This while claiming a solar energy commodity market would raise rates for its customers. If nuclear is so great, why does it need to be pre-funded by customers? Can Georgia ban CWIP? Other states have.

This interesting survey by Wisconsin, courtesy of National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), says Illinois, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Oregon ban CWIP (except in certain cases for some of those states) and North Carolina and Washington in practice do not use it.

Appended below is the first question from the survey and the answers. The entire survey is on the LAKE website.

Here’s who in the Georgia state government you can contact about CWIP.

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CURRENT RETURN ON CWIP
VERSUS AFUDC [Allowance for Funds Used During Construction]
REGULATORY SURVEY RESULTS
March 2006

The Wisconsin Commission is relooking at its current practice for allowing a current return on construction work in progress (CWIP). We would appreciate it if you or someone else from your agency could respond to the following questions.
Continue reading →