nuclear-news

The dimming prospects for the nuclear industry

Exelon, which bills itself as the nation’s “largest competitive power generator,” cited “low natural gas prices and economic and market conditions” that make nuclear construction uneconomical “now and in the foreseeable future.”

Was nuclear the right decision for SCE&G?, Post and Courier, dDoug Pardue, 7 July 13 “…….Ratepayer outrage Robert Johnston buys none of SCE&G’s promise of the billions of dollars in long-range savings from nuclear power.

Johnston is not your normal disgruntled ratepayer. He’s chief strategy officer and executive vice president at The InterTech Group Inc., a North Charleston-based manufacturing conglomerate that also invests in utilities.

Johnston turned rate protester in 2010 when SCE&G tried to win approval for a 10 percent rate increase amid the recession. Johnston helped InterTech make its headquarters building mostly solar-powered, and he added a false roof to his Isle of Palms home so he could place enough solar panels to make his house energy independent.

His monthly electric bill is no longer $400. It’s $9.79. “I’ve effectively fired SCE&G,” he said And that’s what he’d like everyone to do.

He said homeowners could recover in a few years much of the cost of going solar from rebates, government incentives and slashed electric bills. But he also knows that most people can’t afford the tens of thousands of up-front dollars for a full conversion……

Ratepayers are not the only ones concerned over SCE&G’s repeated rate increases to finance the reactor construction. Moody’s Investors Service, one of the nation’s top rating companies, cautioned that SCE&G’s annual rate increases to cover the nuclear construction carry “the potential of rate fatigue” by consumers. Those consumers might rebel and force regulators to impose belt tightening on the power company forcing some rate reductions that presumably undercut the company’s financial projections….

Among those critics is Mark Cooper, an economic analyst with The Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment. He testified for The Sierra Club in hearings last year before the South Carolina Public Service Commission, which oversees the state’s utilities.

Cooper accused SCE&G of sticking with expensive nuclear construction because of “myopic tunnel-vision thinking” driven by advanced cost recovery.

In a study released this year, Cooper wrote, “The fact that advanced recovery for nuclear reactors shifts the risk of construction from stockholders to ratepayers is the one and only thing that is keeping uneconomical reactor projects alive today.”

Nuclear future dims

The economic justification many power companies saw for nuclear in 2005 evaporated in the face of fracking, which sent natural gas prices plummeting by as much as 80 percent before recovering somewhat.

Power companies shelved plans for eight of the 28 new reactors, and the license approval process stalled on seven others as the companies rethought plans or turned to natural gas.

Last year, for example, Exelon, one of the nation’s largest nuclear power generators, halted efforts toward regulatory approval for a nuclear plant in Victoria, Texas.

Exelon, which bills itself as the nation’s “largest competitive power generator,” cited “low natural gas prices and economic and market conditions” that make nuclear construction uneconomical “now and in the foreseeable future.”…..http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130707/PC16/130709584/1009/was-nuclear-the-right-decision-for-sceg&source=RSS

July 8, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA