nuclear-news

Ratepayers stuck with nuclear plant charges

Ratepayers stuck with nuclear plant charges, Tampa Bay Times, August 7, 2012  Imagine adding a garage to a house that is about to collapse. Or installing a new radio in a rusted Chevy that’s up on blocks. Or buying bigger stoves for a closed restaurant that may never reopen. That is how ludicrous it is for Progress Energy Florida to proceed with plans to spend more than $200 million to upgrade the broken Crystal River nuclear plant that may never generate electricity again. Who is going to stop this waste of ratepayers’
money?

As Tampa Bay Times staff writer Ivan Penn reported Sunday, Progress
Energy plans to proceed with expanding the plant’s generating capacity
even though the plant has been broken for three years and it’s unclear
how to fix it — — or even whether it’s worth fixing. The cost to
Progress Energy’s 1.6 million Florida customers: $51.5 million this
year, $110.2 million next year and $64.5 million in 2014. Throw in
another $400 million or so for other improvements to the broken plant
over the next two years. Paying for all of that would be hard to
stomach if the nuclear plant were working, but it is absurd for
ratepayers to be forced to pay those bills to upgrade a plant that may
never be fixed.
Yet not a peep is heard from Tallahassee on behalf of Progress Energy
customers. Gov. Rick Scott is quick to rail against taxes and
government waste, but not against utility rate increases. Legislative
leaders who passed a 2006 law enabling electric utilities to charge
customers up-front for nuclear plants have not grown any
backbones…..
From here, it looks as though Duke is playing an expensive game of
chess with the insurer, with Progress Energy customers as the pawns.
The utility seems to be proceeding with improvements to the Crystal
River plant as though the plant will return to operation and be better
than ever if only the insurer will pay for the repairs. The problem,
of course, is that Progress Energy could be found negligent in
botching the original repairs and the insurer won’t have to pay.

There is more than a billion dollars at stake in deciding the fate of
the broken Crystal River plant and who pays for what. It’s
understandable that Duke Energy inherited a disaster not of its own
making and is looking out for itself. Who is looking out for
ratepayers? http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/ratepayers-stuck-with-nuclear-plant-charges/1244533

August 8, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general