nuclear-news

Vogtle Loan Guarantee Update: Nuclear Power Secrecy Continues Clean Energy Footprints,  February 2nd, 2012 Sara Barczak ›After nearly two years of stonewalling by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) continues to press ahead with our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation so that U.S. taxpayers can learn the full extent of the risks to which they are exposed in the massive commitment of $8.33 billion in conditional federal loan guarantees to Southern Company and their utility partners for two proposed new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia.

Of particular concern: the amount of taxpayer-backed obligations for the proposed Vogtle reactors is more than a dozen times greater than the failed Solyndra loan guarantee, which has received extensive Congressional scrutiny including an audit report of the troubled Department of Energy loan guarantee program that was recently delivered to the Obama Administration. Given the higher price tag and troubled history of nuclear reactor construction, the Vogtle project poses a much greater risk to taxpayers if default occurs. Find our February press release here.

We have continued our suit in federal court in order to force the federal agency to release some of the improperly blacked-out and otherwise withheld information. Of particular interest to us is information revealing whether company officials played an inappropriate role in shaping the terms of the loan guarantee. Based on the limited information produced, it appears that the power companies had to put almost no “skin in the game,” promising to pay a credit subsidy fee of possibly as little as 0.5 or 1.5 percentof the total loan principal.

SACE has continuously voiced concerns about the controversial conditional nuclear loan guarantee awarded to the risky Vogtle project by President Obama back in February 2010…….

What’s next? Both DOE and SACE have one more opportunity to present arguments to the court – DOE on February 15 and SACE on March 2. Those remaining steps are outlined in this court order.

Consequently, nearly two years later, our pursuit continues. Find a detailed, updated timeline describing these activities here.

In order to do our part to shed some light on the Vogtle loan guarantee, we have worked to make public the thousands of pages of documents we have received, many of which are so heavily redacted as to be considered useless in determining the risks that taxpayers may bear if default occurs. View some of these documents here. Our experience has further cemented the fact that in order to protect taxpayers, the continuous shroud of secrecy around the nuclear loan guarantee program must end.  http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2012/02/02/vogtle-loan-guarantee-update/