nuclear-news

USA’s consumer trap of paying in advance for nuclear reactors

Progress Energy files for more recovery charges after nuclear project estimate soars and is further delayed http://enformable.com/2012/05/progress-energy-files-for-more-recovery-charges-after-nuclear-project-estimate-soars-and-is-further-delayed/
Progress Energy, the electric utility in Pinellas County and much of North and Central Florida, has filed its nuclear cost recovery charges with the state Public Service Commission to assist in continuing work on nuclear reactors which may never be built, or ever return to
service at the Levy and Crystal River sites….

Progress Energy’s charge if granted in full will have a tremendous impact on residential
homeowners, who would be expected to pay an extra fee of $5.09 on a 1,000-kilowatt-hour residential bill beginning next year, compared to the extra $2.86  in 2012.

Crystal River has been off line since September 2009, when a refueling
and power up-rate began. During the upgrade, workers discovered gaps
and flaws in the concrete containment dome, which was opened to
install new steam generators, during the operation, the 42-inch-thick
concrete containment building also cracked.

The reactor was originally expected to restart in April 2011 but
Progress said last summer updated reports which showed the unit would
not restart until at least 2014. The company has estimated the cost of
repairing the containment structure at between $900 million and $1.3
billion, as it continues to deny the affected structure is any less
safe .
The details of the Levy nuclear project has changed dramatically from
the initially positive estimate of having both reactors operational
between 2016 and 2017, which was later reevaluated to enter service in
2021 at an estimated cost of $17 billion to $22 billion..

In its PSC filing, Progress is also pushing back its estimated
in-service date for the first Levy County unit to 2024, the second
unit is tentatively schedule to also join in-service in 2015 or 2016.

The utility also increase the total estimates from the 2006 estimate
which said that the Levy project would only cost $4 billion to $6
billion with swift start-up in 2016.

The cost immediately increased in 2007 to $10 billion and subsequently
in 2008 to $17 billion.

In 2011 it reached $22.4 billion with start-up in 2021, but the latest
filing also brought an announcement that will raise the latest
estimates of the final bill to a range of at least 19 to 24 billion
dollars.

Susan Glickman of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which
opposes the Levy project and pushes for alternative energy, said
someone needs to put an end to what appears to be an unbridled
spending of customers’ money by Florida utilities….
The Renewable Technology and Efficiency Act encourages the development
of nuclear energy, by encouraging utilities to use a pay-as-you-go
method, thereby assuring preconstruction and interest costs through a
much less riskier device employed to benefit a utility proposing new
nuclear construction projects,  or expansion of existing nuclear
plants, even if the actual project is never completed.

The question still stands, if Progress had not been enabled by
Florida’s legislators to charge its customers years and years in
advance on a dramatically under-scrutinized plan, would the company
every have found alternative financing and moved forward without the
added risk-buffer?

Georgia and South Carolina are using similar cost-recovery rules to
encourage units of Southern Co and Scana Corp and partners to build
new reactors in their states.

Iowa is also considering adopting such a cost-recovery policy as
Utilities argue the rules make reactor construction possible and help
reduce customer costs.

May 3, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, politics, USA