Vogtle Nuclear Plant’s huge loan guarantee, dwarfs Solyndra’s solar loan

Why You’ve Heard of Solyndra, but not Vogtle, Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter Sinclair January 2, 2013 The Kochtopus media machine has made sure that the misfires of a burgeoning new industry, Solar energy, have become household names. Solyndra is the best example ofnon-scandals that Fox & Friends have tried hard to pump into something substantial.

Meanwhile, backed by a loan guarantee 15 times as large as the one Solyndra got, the new Vogtle Nuclear project has been quietly plowing ahead in Georgia.  Inevitably, the same types of tiresome and monotonous glitches, snafus and gremlins so familiar to nuclear industry observers have been cropping up and bogging down the ill considered project.

Those still looking for a nuclear revival would do well to consider what those of us paying attention knew a long time ago. This stuff is just too damn complex, ponderous, and expensive to compete. But don’t expect to hear much about it on Fox & Friends.

Wall Street Journal:
The first newly licensed nuclear-power plant to be built in the U.S. in decades, the Vogtle project in Georgia, has run into construction problems and may be falling years behind schedule, according to an engineering expert advising the state.

The $14 billion plant is being closely watched by energy experts as a bellwether for the rebirth of the U.S. nuclear industry, because it involves a new type of nuclear reactor and a modular construction method that are supposed to reduce construction time and cost.

But a construction monitor warned in a report to the Georgia Public Service Commission this month that the plant, which will be operated by Southern Co. SO -1.21% on behalf of several utilities, was falling behind schedule because of what he called an unsatisfactory performance by its construction team………..

….. 4 nuclear units were planned for $660,000,000 fifteen (15) years later only 2 units were built, for $8,870,000,000. That’s more than $8 billion in cost overruns, or more than 13 times the original cost estimate. So per unit, that’s more than 26 times the original estimate, or more than $4 billion per unit.

And of course that $8,870,000,000 is in 1987 dollars. In 2012 dollars that would be about $17,976,000,000. Or about $9 billion a unit.

The stock excuse for nuclear contractors way back when was the staggering cost of constantly changing Nuclear building standards and regulations.  Of course, one of the reasons those costs became so staggering is that many of these projects were still under construction when the Three Mile Island accident shone a bright spotlight on glaring design deficiencies that citizens groups and independent scientists had been shouting about for a decade. http://climatecrocks.com/2013/01/02/why-youve-heard-of-solyndra-but-not-vogtle/

April 5, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA