Tag Archives: Plant Vogtle

Southern Company backed off on cost overrun request

Fitch reaffirmed SO’s and Georgia Power’s (and Mississippi Power’s) ratings today after Southern Company backed off a week ago from risking losing the larger cost overrun request to GA PSC. Beware: SO will be back, when maybe fewer people are looking. Or maybe that tiger team will issue its summer report and the titanic Southern Company ship will finally change course towards distributed solar and wind power.

Jonathan Shapiro wrote for AP 31 July 2013, AP: Georgia Power To Waive Request for Extra Vogtle Costs

[Southern Company] CEO Thomas Fanning told analysts Wednesday that the Atlanta-based company reached a preliminary deal with Georgia officials.

Under the plan, the company would only seek right now to collect the $209 million that it spent building the two new reactors at Plant Vogtle from July to December.

The company would waive Continue reading →

Nuclear an economic boon despite high costs –Tim Echols

Some of the “stuff” that happened before and after GA PSC Tim Echols cheered nuclear Friday.

GA Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols wrote in the Athens Banner-Herald Friday Echols: Nuclear power can be economic boon to Southeast,

Just when we thought nuclear power might be on a comeback, well, stuff happened. Only time will tell if Georgia and South Carolina can “jump-start” a nuclear renaissance. Let’s hope we can, because low-cost base-load energy — the amount of electricity available 24 hours a day — is a key to economic growth.

Stuff like this happened:

Southern Company missed earnings on Kemper Coal but Plant Vogtle is dominant

The dominant financial consideration is “what’s going to happen with Georgia”, meaning with nuclear Plant Vogtle, said SO CEO Tom Fanning, referring to the GA PSC CWIP monitoring hearings currently in progress. Meanwhile, that $160 million estimate 2 July 2013 of more Kemper Coal cost overruns by 30 July turned into $278 million after taxes (AP). This is on top of $333 million after taxes in May. SO earnings fell 52% (WSJ), missing projections, and SO stock dropped 2% yesterday.

Remember GA PSC Tim Echols already suggested a Plant Vogtle cost overrun cap similar to the one Mississippi PSC applied to Kemper Coal that caused SO to have to eat all those costs. If that happens, SO’s got financial problems.

Has SO seen the solar light yet, as in reliable, dependable, and deployable on time and on budget? Nope. Solar was tacked onto the end of Tom Fanning’s summary of interesting stuff in the 31 July 2013 earnings call: Continue reading →

GA PSC hearings on Plant Vogtle CWIP monitoring

Will GA PSC yet again approve passing cost overruns for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle on to Georgia Power customers? Hearings started today about that. You can listen, and you can testify, today or in August or September, or in writing.

GA PSC PR 15 July 2013,


Contact: Bil Edge
Phone 404-656-2316
www.psc.state.ga.us 		Georgia Public Service Commission

244 Washington St S.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Phone: 404-656-4501
Toll free:1- 800-282-5813
Fax: 404-656-2341
For Immediate Release
 MEDIA ADVISORY 7-13

PSC to Begin Hearings on Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear Construction Project Monitoring

Atlanta, July 15, 2013 – The Georgia Public Service Commission (Commission) will begin its first set of hearings on July 18, 2013 at 10 a.m. on the Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear Construction Projection Monitoring, Docket 29849. The hearing will take place in Room 110 at the Commission offices at 244 Washington Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30334.The hearing will continue, if necessary, at 10 a.m. on Friday July 19, 2013. Additional hearings are scheduled for August 13-14, 2013 and September 12, 2013.

The Commission will begin by receiving the testimony of any public witnesses pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 46-2-59(g). Immediately following public witnesses, the Commission will hear applications to intervene and any objections thereto, and any motions concerning the utilities pre-filed testimony and other appropriate motions. Following these preliminary matters, the Commission will conduct hearings on the direct case of Georgia Power.

The schedule in this docket is as follows: Continue reading →

Monticello nuke down 5 1/2 months and $267 million over budget

83% cost overrun on a 12% power upgrade, but no worries! Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant The nuke operator will pass that through to the customers. Duke had the good sense to shut down Crystal River. Maybe we should stop the new nukes at Plant Vogtle, which have already run up more than twice the cost overruns of Monticello, before they cost us even more for power we could get much faster and on-budget through solar or wind energy.

Katherine Tweed wrote for IEEE Spectrum 16 July 2013, Minnesota Nuclear Plant Upgrade Is $267 Million Over Budget,

After being shut down for four months, Minnesota’s Monticello nuclear power plant will restart this week with an additional 71 megawatts of capacity, a 12 percent power uprate. The increased costs, however, will far outstrip the additional percentage of power production.

The project, which included maintenance, upgrades and the uprate, was budgeted at $320 million. But Monticello has cost overruns of about 83 percent, or $267 million, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The plant’s owner, Xcel Energy, has not released Continue reading →

China ends a nuclear treatment plant after demonstrations

“In order to respect the popular will, the government of” the city of Heshan refused to proceed with a $9 billion uranium processing plant. That happened after this, yesterday:

The cancellation, unusually fast, demonstrates the increasingly important attention given by the authorities to environmental concerns that are often expressed at the local level. Several projects of petrochemical plants and metal processing have recently been postponed or relocated.

Yes, I know the plant may just be relocated somewhere else. But with enough such demonstrations it won’t be built. How about some of this respect for the popular will about, for example, the natural gas pipeline through Georgia from Alabama to Florida, or the new nukes at Plant Vogtle?

Le Monde, today, Continue reading →

Koch astroturf vs. solar jobs for Georgians

More solar for Georgia must be a good thing if AFP is organizing astroturf against it. GA PSC decides Thursday. Like another speaker at GA PSC last month, I don’t think even Bubba McDonald’s proposal to double solar requirements on Georgia Power goes nearly far enough, but at least it’s a start, which is more than Georgia Power will do unless nudged by GA PSC.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Critics’ numbers misleading in Georgia solar fight: Georgia panel will vote soon on power plan,

A political group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch wants Georgia’s utility regulators to reject a plan requiring Southern Co. to buy more solar energy, but an Associated Press review finds it has used misleading figures to build its case.

The Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity, founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants Georgia’s utility regulators to reject a solar energy plan in Georgia. But an Associated Press review ahead of a vote on the issue finds that it has used misleading figures to build its case.

The Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity has said in mass e-mails that Continue reading →

Re-evaluate Plant Vogtle and move to wind and solar power –Courtney Hanson @ GA PSC 2013-06-18

Re-evaluate Plant Vogtle, especially its water use, and move to efficiency, wind, and solar power instead, said Courtney Hanson of Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions (GA WAND) at the Georgia Public Service Commission meeting Tuesday 18 June 2013.

She reminded GA PSC Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 are late and over budget, and then:

I want to add my voice to the chorus of folks here who are concerned about water issues. We know that Vogtle 3 and 4 will require an additional withdrawal of as much as 74 million gallons a day from the Savannah River and most of that water will not be returned. We know that the central Savannah River area where Vogtle is located is already very prone to droughts and the plant has been close to shutting down several times due to drought conditions. Georgia is also already struggling to supply enough water for our homes, businesses, industries, and farms.

In addition, the Savannah River is Continue reading →

Georgia Power still too slow on solar in 20 year plan: PSC decides soon

Georgia Power tries to continue whistling in the fossil and nuclear fuel dark while distributed solar power changes the world around it. The Georgia Public Service Commission can decide differently, and will decide next week, 11 July 2013.

Joshua Stewart wrote 2 July 2013, Decision Looms On Georgia Power Plan,

The state Public Service Commission votes next week on Georgia Power’s 20-year plan, the road map for providing electricity to 2.4 million customers. That includes the mix of fuels the company will use and the efforts the company undertakes to get customers to use less energy. This happens every few years. But this time, Georgia Power also wants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating units at six power plants.

This happens every few years. But this time, Georgia Power also wants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating units at six power plants.

PSC Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald said at a hearing in April that this version of Georgia Power’s plan “is filled with the most-significant issues” of any Integrated Resources Plan in the last decade.

And Georgia Power avoids actually facing many of those issues:

Continue reading →

Vogtle nuke loan deadline extended for third time

We don’t know the federal cost estimates or the terms and conditions or why Plant Vogtle just got another three month extension on that $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee.

Rob Pavey wrote for the August Chronicle yesterday, Federal loan guarantee offer for Vogtle expansion extended again,

The owners of Plant Vogtle have secured — for the third time — an extension to allow further negotiation with the U.S. Energy Department over its 2010 offer of up to $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to help finance two new nuclear reactors.

Georgia Power and co-owners Oglethorpe Power and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia were conditionally approved in February 2010 for loan-guarantee financing, in which the government promises to assume a company’s debt if the company defaults. However, the details were never agreed on. Two extensions have since expired, with the most recent deadline — June 30 — passing without any formal agreement in place. Jeannice M.W. Hall, a Southern Co. spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Wednesday that the new extension sets a Sept. 30 deadline for completing the loan guarantee arrangements.

With Southern Company’s stock already downgraded because of Kemper Coal and Plant Vogtle, after S&P’s downgraded SO’s credit, and with still more cost overruns at Kemper on top of Vogtle being 19 months late and a billion dollars over budget, as Gloria Tatum asked back in May, why is SO gambling on nuclear instead of solar?

If you’re tired of this, you can ask DoE Secretary Ernest Moniz to revoke that loan.

-jsq