nuclear-news

JEA’s chief executive officer issued a sharply worded letter Friday to one of the Georgia-based co-owners of the faltering Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project demanding it walk away from the $27 billion effort, accusing the agency of rebuffing requests from local utility officials for more information about the increasingly expensive construction project that Jacksonville ratepayers are tied to.

JEA interim CEO Aaron Zahn told James Fuller, president and CEO of the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, that the two agencies have a “starkly different understanding of our joint business and legal relationship as well as the fundamental viability” of completing the two “economically obsolete” nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, outside Augusta, Ga. Zahn said MEAG risks violating the terms of a 2008 purchase-power agreement between the two agencies that put JEA on the hook for a portion of the construction costs and obligated it to purchase power from the reactors for 20 years.

That obligation could cost JEA up to $4 billion over two decades.

The demand letter represents a significant escalation in JEA’s determination to kill the Plant Vogtle project. It has previously told financial analysts it wanted the project to get canceled but has stayed on the sidelines as Georgia power regulators debated its future.

Zahn said JEA officials in the past have been “rebuffed” by MEAG when seeking detailed financial information about the Vogtle project, and demanded the agency turn over those records. Zahn asked Fuller to respond within five days.

MEAG officials could not be immediately reached for comment Friday evening.

The 2008 contract has weighed heavily on the minds of JEA officials, who are seeking ways of exiting the agency’s obligation to help build the two nuclear reactors. In the years since the JEA board of directors agreed to buy power from the yet-to-be-constructed reactors, the project has nearly doubled in cost, skyrocketing JEA’s own obligations with it.

Nuclear power, just years ago thought to be entering a golden age, is no longer favored by American electric utilities. The Plant Vogtle expansion is the only remaining active nuclear power project in the nation.

Zahn’s letter came a day after Central Florida state Sen. Debbie Mayfield asked legislative auditors to examine JEA’s agreement with MEAG, citing concerns she had heard from Jacksonville residents and citing it as an “alarming example” of “potential mismanagement.”…….http://www.jacksonville.com/news/20180817/jea-issues-ultimatum-to-plant-vogtle-co-owner-walk-away-from-nuclear-project