nuclear-news

Southern’s Georgia Power pushing for a $8.3 billion US govt loan guarantee

Southern Co working to finalize $8 bln nuclear loan guarantee Jan 29 (Reuters) – Southern Co Chairman Tom Fanning said on Wednesday that the company is working with the U.S. Energy Department to finalize an $8.3 billion loan guarantee for its two-reactor expansion at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, the first new reactors to be built in three decades.

Southern’s Georgia Power unit is leading a utility consortium that is building two 1,100-megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at a projected cost exceeding $14 billion…….

Federal loan guarantees had been viewed as critical to the once-predicted revival of U.S. nuclear construction due to the regulatory risk and high cost of nuclear construction.

Now, only a few new reactors are expected to be built due to lower natural gas prices, anemic growth in electricity demand and the lack of restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide.

The only new U.S. reactors under construction are being built by the Georgia Power consortium and SCANA Corp, which is building two reactors in South Carolina.

The Vogtle loan guarantee, announced in 2010, was expected to be finalized in 2012, but negotiations bogged down over terms and costs and were complicated by DOE requirements added after the much-publicized bankruptcy in 2011 of solar panel maker Solyndra which had received loan guarantees…..http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/29/utilities-nuclear-southern-idUSL2N0L31V320140129

January 30, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized