Is nuclear the best option for SA? Flexibility is key in an unpredictable world. Money Web, Roger Lilley / 1 June 2017 Eskom appears to be more concerned with building new nuclear power stations than in signing power purchase agreements with independent power producers that use renewable energy sources. Energize caught up with energy analyst and managing director of EE Publishers, Chris Yelland, for his opinion on what generation technologies South Africa should opt for.
…….CHRIS YELLAND:…..I am certainly not opposed to a nuclear new-build in South Africa on ideological or technology grounds. But there are real issues that both nuclear and renewable energy proponents must deal with. ….
Firstly, there are public perceptions of political motives, political interference and corruption associated with mega-project procurements. There are widespread public perceptions that things happen in secret behind closed doors, that due process is not being followed, and that there are some rather sinister motives. Whatever we think of these perceptions, whether they are true or not, they actually need to be dealt with.
The high, upfront capital costs, and associated financing and affordability of such mega-projects, is an issue, and one really has to deal with this issue, because it is one of the big drawbacks of nuclear.
We must also fully understand the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from nuclear power over the economic lifetime of the plant, taking into account the overnight capital cost, interest during construction, the fixed and variable operating, maintenance and fuel costs, and the costs of decommissioning and waste disposal. The LCOE indicates the overall cost, in R/kWh of the electricity delivered from a nuclear power plant, in order to be able to compare it properly on a similar basis with other technologies.
Nuclear power stations take a long time to build – up to ten to 12 years per reactor – and mega-projects are prone to high cost and time overruns. These realities cannot simply be ignored.South Africa needs flexibility in an uncertain and unpredictable world, where electricity demand is difficult to predict in the years ahead, and disruptive technologies are on the horizon. Technologies such as wind, solar PV and energy storage may change the rules of the game……..
A tipping point was reached as the price of wind and solar PV energy came crashing down. All of a sudden there are now lower-cost alternatives to new nuclear and new coal power. Nuclear is no longer the least-cost option, and a blend of wind, solar PV, gas and pumped storage can deliver reliable, despatchable, baseload power at lower cost than new nuclear and even new coal power…….
there’s the option of wind, solar PV, gas and pumped storage. This is a low carbon option, just as nuclear is a low carbon option. But it is also an option to deliver reliable, despatchable baseload power in a flexible way at lower cost than the nuclear option. This is what is termed “flexible power”…….
CHRIS YELLAND: In my view, the decline of the coal sector is inevitable, as the world moves away from coal to a cleaner, low-carbon future, both locally and globally.
We live in a global village, and South Africa simply cannot continue to burn coal regardless of the consequences to water use, pollution, health and climate change. The world is expecting us to move to cleaner options, and South Africa has made international commitments to do just this. We need to plan ahead and address these matters going forward. ……
The growth of rooftop solar PV in domestic, commercial and industrial applications has not been considered in the Draft IRP 2016 at all, and yet is a growing and inevitable reality, both globally and in South Africa.
The Department of Energy, Eskom and municipal electricity distributors ignore this growing alternative and supplement to conventional grid electricity at their peril. This is potentially a huge disruptor to the traditional business models of power utilities.
Customers are choosing cleaner and cheaper sources of energy to reduce both their costs and dependency on public utilities. Thus I expect very significant growth in this market as solar PV and battery storage prices continue to drop, while the price of grid electricity continues to rise.Utilities have to sit up and take note. Otherwise they may find themselves in a death spiral, where rising costs of grid power drive their customers away to alternatives. As people move to these alternatives in greater numbers, so the costs of the new alternative technologies come down due to increasing economies of scale. At the same time, in a vicious circle, this further pushes up the price of grid power, as utilities try to recover their fixed cost structure from declining kWh sales volumes.
This really needs to be taken seriously. It has happened in other parts of the world, and it’s not unthinkable that it could happen in South Africa. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/nuclear-energy-the-best-option-for-south-africa/
June 2, 2017
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Cheaper Solar in India Prompts Rethink for Coal Projects, Bloomberg, by Anindya Upadhyay and Rajesh Kumar Singh June 1, 2017,
India’s coal-power plant developers are growing more pessimistic about their projects after a plunge in the cost of electricity from solar panels improved the economics of renewable energy.
After a string of federal auctions, solar is suddenly the cheapest source of electricity in India. That’s darkening the outlook for the coal-fired power industry as projects struggle to find customers or face cancellation amid a glut of capacity.
“The crashing solar tariffs are creating a mental block for distribution companies and holding them back from signing long-term purchase agreements with conventional power producers,” said T. Adi Babu, chief operating officer for finance at Lanco Infratech Ltd., an Indian power producer. “A couple of years back, when people talked of solar reaching grid parity, people were skeptical. Now the solar tariffs have gone well below that. It is definitely making conventional players sit up and take notice.”……
evidence of a shift away from coal is gathering by the day.
- State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest power producer, along with RattanIndia Power Ltd. are considering installing solar panels over land initially intended for thermal projects.
- NTPC said in February it’s aiming to have 30 percent of its capacity come from non-fossil fuel by 2032
- The Indian subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed CLP Holdings Ltd., which owns both coal and renewable projects, is debating whether to participate in another round of conventional projects. “A transition from coal to solar is a generic direction that all utilities are taking. We are an early mover into the renewables space so our journey continues,” Mahesh Makhija, business-development director for renewables, said in a phone interview.
- The government of the sunny state of Rajasthan expects more conventional power to be replaced by clean energy as higher renewable purchase targets are fulfilled. “At the rate the renewable power tariffs are decreasing, the time is not far when renewable power will start replacing costlier conventional power,” Sanjay Malhotra, principal secretary for energy in the Rajasthan government, said by phone.
Solar is now as much as 50 percent cheaper than new coal power, according to solar research firm Bridge to India.
“That’s why we have seen many new coal power tenders being suspended or canceled in the last three months,” said Vinay Rustagi, managing director at Bridge to India…….
renewables are expanding quickly in India. Solar capacity has surged fourfold since December 2014 to about 12 gigawatts, while wind farms now provide 32 gigawatts, up from 22.5 gigawatts over the same period. Modi is seeking an additional 88 gigawatts of solar and 28 gigawatts more of wind by 2022. And those projects are crowding coal out of the power market…….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/cheaper-solar-in-india-prompts-rethink-for-more-coal-projects
June 2, 2017
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business and costs, India, renewable |
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FT 1st June 2017 US companies in industries from manufacturing and energy to information technology have reacted with dismay to the prospect of President Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, warning that pulling out of the accord would hit jobs and investment.
Businesses have raised concerns about the impact on markets for products that can help cut greenhouse gas emissions, and warned that countries remaining in the accord could impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods.
However, some groups have said they will press ahead with investments in emissions-reducing technologies, saying they expect continued long-term growth in demand despite the lack of support from the US administration. Leading US
companies including Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel and Microsoft have taken out an advertisement in US newspapers on Thursday with an open letter to Mr Trump arguing that the Paris agreement generates jobs and economic growth
by expanding the markets for innovative environmentally friendly technologies. It warns that withdrawal would limit US access to those markets. https://www.ft.com/content/5f2b6e06-4663-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996
June 2, 2017
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Ecowatch 30th May 2017. Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring back U.S. coal jobs, hundreds of laid off miners in Wyoming—the nation’s largest coal-producing state—are still seeking work.
But these ex-miners might find hope with a most unlikely employer: a wind power company. The American arm of Goldwind, a Chinese wind turbine maker, has announced a free program to retrain miners to become wind farm technicians, The New York Times reported. https://www.ecowatch.com/wind-jobs-coal-miners-goldwind-2426715170.html
June 2, 2017
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employment, renewable, USA |
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Infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant is latest casualty of shale boom, The Virginian Pilot, 30 May 17 By Jim Polson Bloomberg “….Exelon’s Three Mile Island reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site of the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history in 1979, will close in 2019 after losing money for five years, the company said Tuesday in a filing. At least five nuclear power plants have retired in the past five years including Fort Calhoun in Nebraska, which closed in October, as shale gas and rising output of wind and solar power depress prices.
While New York and Illinois have stepped in with mandates that customers pay more for nuclear power to save jobs and curb greenhouse gas emissions, Pennsylvania has not. Last year, Illinois approved a $235 million-a-year lifeline for Exelon’s Quad Cities and Clinton reactors after the company announced they would close.
The announcement smacks of “posturing,” Shahriar Pourreza, a New York-based analyst for Guggenheim Securities, said by phone Tuesday. “This is no different than what they did in Illinois. It’s the right tactic. They’ve got time.”
The Pennsylvania plant, with one reactor still in operation, has become a money loser amid falling power prices, according to Chicago-based Exelon. For the third consecutive year, the plant failed to win generating capacity payments last week in an auction held by PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. power market……
Exelon’s Three Mile Island reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site of the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history in 1979, will close in 2019 after losing money for five years, the company said Tuesday in a filing. At least five nuclear power plants have retired in the past five years including Fort Calhoun in Nebraska, which closed in October, as shale gas and rising output of wind and solar power depress prices.
While New York and Illinois have stepped in with mandates that customers pay more for nuclear power to save jobs and curb greenhouse gas emissions, Pennsylvania has not. Last year, Illinois approved a $235 million-a-year lifeline for Exelon’s Quad Cities and Clinton reactors after the company announced they would close.
The announcement smacks of “posturing,” Shahriar Pourreza, a New York-based analyst for Guggenheim Securities, said by phone Tuesday. “This is no different than what they did in Illinois. It’s the right tactic. They’ve got time.”
The Pennsylvania plant, with one reactor still in operation, has become a money loser amid falling power prices, according to Chicago-based Exelon. For the third consecutive year, the plant failed to win generating capacity payments last week in an auction held by PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. power market…….
Exelon will record one-time costs of as much as $110 million pretax in the second quarter to retire the plant before its license expires in 2034, according to the filing. Charges of as much as $25 million a year may be recorded in 2018 and 2019. Cash costs related to the closing may reach $70 million, mostly for employee-related expenses. The plant employs about 675 people, the company said in the statement.
Exelon shares rose 0.5 percent to $36 at 10:53 a.m. in New York, outperforming the S&P 500 Utilities Index.
“Investors want them to close the plant,” Pourreza said. “It’s not a great plant. It’s old, it generates negative cash flow.” http://pilotonline.com/news/nation-world/national/infamous-three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-is-latest-casualty-of/article_45587ac5-bd06-5e1e-bfdb-8cef7d75255d.html
May 31, 2017
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Dave Toke’s Blog 27th May 2017 It’s now the middle of 2017 and still, after 12 years of trying to build the French European Pressurised Reactor, there is still no model in operation. Even in China, which has, according to some of its domestic critics, let us say a more relaxed attitude to safety requirements compared to western agencies, the EPR at Taishan is still not generating electricity.
It was 16 months ago that the constructors announced that ‘cold start’ tests had been successful and that the whole of the plant (including two sets) would be fully functional this year (2017). Now they say that this will not happen, although one set ‘will’ be running sometime in the second half of this year. But then the plant, which begun construction in 2009, was supposed to be finished in 2013. This failure does present the question of how it is that other nuclear plant built in
China have not been subject to this much delay.
How can we explain this? The obvious reason is that the EPR is a turkey that is widely regarded as bordering on, if not actually, ‘unconstructable’. The difference with other nuclear plant built in China may simply be that the EPR was designed to suit western safety standards.
It’s an easy guess to say what this means for Chinese plans to build nuclear power plant in the UK! In France
construction at the EPR at Flamanville began in 2007 and completion by 2019 seems possible but uncertain. The other EPR at Olkiluoto started in 2005 and is about, so they say. to undergo ‘cold tests’. On the basis of what has happened in Taishan this doesn’t mean that it is about the generate electricity, though. http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/more-delays-in-epr-signals-more.html
May 31, 2017
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business and costs, China, France |
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Critics have pointed to the rising seas from climate change, risks of storm surge, radioactive waste and threats to drinking water and wildlife at the site, nestled near Everglades National Park, as reasons to stop nuclear expansion.
Complaints have also centered on the difficulty of evacuating the densely populated area around the plant in case of emergency. Miami-Dade County is home to 2.6 million people.
“Investing tens of billions of dollars on a power plant that will be underwater one day, along with the highly radioactive waste it will produce, makes no sense,”
Why nuclear could become the next ‘fossil’ fuel, Afp, Homestead, United States, Daily Star 29 May 17 A gray dinosaur statue outside south Florida’s largest power plant is meant to symbolize two decommissioned fossil fuel reactors, but it also could be seen to represent a nuclear industry crumpling under mounting costs.
Almost a decade ago, Turkey Point was aiming to become one of the country’s largest nuclear plants.Florida Power and Light had argued that such expansion was needed to maintain diverse energy sources and to supply Florida’s booming population for years to come, while touting nuclear as a clean form of energy.
But now, just three reactors are in operation – one natural gas and two nuclear reactors, built in the 1970s. And plans to build two more nuclear reactors — first announced in 2009 — are essentially on hold for at least four years, according to filings with the state’s Public Service Commission……
The project has been controversial from the start, and casts the spotlight on wider concerns about nuclear power.
Critics have pointed to the rising seas from climate change, risks of storm surge, radioactive waste and threats to drinking water and wildlife at the site, nestled near Everglades National Park, as reasons to stop nuclear expansion.
Complaints have also centered on the difficulty of evacuating the densely populated area around the plant in case of emergency. Miami-Dade County is home to 2.6 million people.
“Investing tens of billions of dollars on a power plant that will be underwater one day, along with the highly radioactive waste it will produce, makes no sense,” said fishing captain Dan Kipnis, one of the activists who is fighting to stop the project.
Legal challenges to the plant’s planned expansion began in 2010, and continued this month with a hearing before the Atomic Safety Board.
Over the course of the two-day hearing, environmental scientists and lawyers wrangled over whether the porous limestone in Florida could really contain wastewater injected underground, without allowing toxic chemicals to seep upward into drinking water.
Currently, Turkey’s Point’s two nuclear reactors use a series of cooling canals to treat wastewater.
These canals were confirmed last year to be leaking into a nearby national park, after a radioactive isotope, tritium, was found at up to 215 times the normal levels in the waters of Biscayne Bay.
The three-judge safety board panel is expected to rule by year’s end on whether an operating license should be granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Throughout Florida, FPL is expanding its solar installations, and is shuttering coal plants.
Its energy mix is 70 percent natural gas, 17 percent nuclear, with the rest divided between solar, oil and coal.
Meanwhile, the ever-dropping cost of natural gas is making nuclear less attractive every day, analysts say.
“Most people think Turkey Point will never get built,” said Mark Cooper, senior research fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, referring to FPL’s proposed two new nuclear reactors. “It turns out it was not the environmentalists, it was not the lawsuits,” Cooper told AFP.
“They could not deliver a safe, economically viable product. They couldn’t do it in the ’80s and they can’t do it today,” said Cooper.
“Nuclear power is a technology whose time never came.”http://www.thedailystar.net/business/why-nuclear-could-become-the-next-fossil-fuel-1412248
May 29, 2017
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business and costs, climate change, USA |
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Philippines, Russia forge nuclear cooperation deal, ABS-CBN News, May 26 2017 MANILA – The Philippines and Russia have agreed to develop cooperation on nuclear energy under an agreement signed in Moscow, Russia’s state nuclear agency said Friday.
Under the memorandum of cooperation, the two nations will pursue the “development of the nuclear infrastructure” in the Philippines, including personnel training and securing public acceptance of nuclear power, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corp said in a statement……Duterte has approved a study on the feasibility of nuclear power to augment the country’s electricity supply.
The Philippines has a nuclear power plant in Bataan, which has never been used.http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/26/17/philippines-russia-forge-nuclear-cooperation-deal
May 27, 2017
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marketing, Philippines, Russia |
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Russia, Philippines forge Defense Cooperation Agreement, UPDATE PH, May 26, 2017 Caleb Velasquez The defense cooperation will expand exchanges in terms of training, seminars and best practices between the two countries, with the end to develop relations in the field of military education, including military medicine, military history, sports, and culture as well as experiences in consultation, observer participation in military training exercises, and military port calls…..
Memorandum of Agreement between the Department of Science and Technology of the Philippines and the State Atomic Energy Corporation, otherwise known as ROSATOM on Cooperation on the Use of Nuclear Energy for Peaceful Purposes was also forged. https://www.update.ph/2017/05/russia-philippines-forge-defense-cooperation-agreement/17735
May 27, 2017
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marketing, Philippines, Russia |
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Nuclear Reactor Involved In US History’s Worst Meltdown At Risk Of Shutting Down, Daily Caller ,ANDREW FOLLETT, Energy and Science Reporter, 24 May 17 THE PENNSYLVANIA POWER PLANT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LARGEST NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IN U.S. HISTORY FACES EARLY RETIREMENT, ACCORDING TO NUCLEAR INDUSTRY OFFICIALS.
Exelon Corporation announced Wednesday that it would have trouble selling electricity generated by the Three Mile Island (TMI) and Quad Cities nuclear power plants in 2020. Exelon didn’t sell any of the stations’ power during advanced auction in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
Exelon’s other nuclear plants in the region were able to sell their power for the 2020-2021 planning year, but the company says TMI hasn’t been profitable for five years — the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in the 1970s.
“The failure of the TMI plant, in particular, to clear the PJM capacity auction is the latest data point that all is not well with the U.S. electricity marketplace and that nuclear energy plants are at risk for premature closure if the current market is not reformed and innovated,” David Blee, executive director of the Nuclear Infrastructure Council, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
In March 1979, TMI’s number 2 reactor partially melted down, causing the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear operating history. The event spurred environmentalist campaigns to prevent other nuclear power plants from being built, and has tarnished the industry’s reputation ever since….
…..TMI’s possible closure is not an isolated incident. About half of U.S. nuclear reactors are at risk of closing early…In the past two years, six states have shut down nuclear plants, and “dozens” of other plants across the U.S. are facing challenging economic conditions, placing them at risk of imminent retirement. Decommissioning reactors can cost up to $1.5 billion and take up to 60 years to complete….
May 26, 2017
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Renewable Energy Powers Jobs for Almost 10 Million People https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/renewable-energy-powers-jobs-for-almost-10-million-people [excellent graphs, diagrams) by Mahmoud Habboush May 24, 2017,
- Solar industry has 3.09 million people vs 1.2 million in wind
The renewable energy industry employed 9.8 million people last year, up 1.1 percent from 2015, led by the solar photovoltaic business, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s annual report on the industry.
Growth has slowed in the past two years, while the solar photovoltaic category, with 3.09 million jobs, and wind business more than doubled their respective employee numbers since 2012, the first year assessed, Irena said in the report.
“The nature of jobs is changing a little bit, with more emphasis on the installation, operational and maintenance side,” Adnan Amin, Irena’s director general, said Wednesday in an interview in Abu Dhabi. “That doesn’t grow as fast as the growth in manufacturing, which was very quick because the technology cost was coming down and you had this huge explosion in equipment.”
Jobs will continue to grow in developing countries, especially in Asia, he said.
Here are some of the highlights from the report:
- Global renewables employment has climbed every year since 2012, with solar photovoltaic becoming the largest segment by total jobs in 2016.
- Solar photovoltaic employed 3.09 million people, followed by liquid biofuels at 1.7 million. The wind industry had 1.2 million employees, a 7 percent increase from 2015.
- Employment in renewables, excluding large hydro power, increased 2.8 percent last year to 8.3 million people, with China, Brazil, the U.S., India, Japan and Germany the leading job markets. Asian countries accounted for 62 percent of total jobs in 2016 compared with 50 percent in 2013.
Renewables jobs could total 24 million in 2030, as more countries take steps to combat climate change, Irena said.
May 26, 2017
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2 WORLD, employment, renewable |
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Buoyed by State Aid, U.S. Nuclear Plant Still Fails at Auction, Bloomberg, by Jim Polson, May 25, 2017
- Quad Cities fails to submit winning bid at PJM auction
-
Three Mile Island at risk of early retirement: Exelon
Even the promise of state subsidies wasn’t enough to help a struggling nuclear power plant in the biggest electricity market emerge a victor in a closely watched auction.
Exelon Corp. said its Quad Cities plant in Illinois didn’t clear at the annual auction of capacity rights by PJM Interconnection LLC. It was the first time the grid operator had held a sale since a handful of nuclear reactors in Illinois and New York won subsidies to stay open.
In the run-up to the auction, opponents of subsidies had feared Exelon might undercut rivals in the knowledge that Quad Cities would be a recipient of state aid. With reactors reeling under competition from cheap shale gas and renewables, more states could now face pressure to help out ailing nuclear plants, according to Kit Konolige, a utilities analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Exelon could make the other argument, that even with the subsidy it wasn’t able to clear,” Konolige said by phone on Wednesday. “That’s how bad its economics were.”……..
Exelon said the plant has not yet been selected to receive zero emissions credits under the Future Energy Jobs Act, which is designed to promote a clean energy future for Illinois, and is expected to come into force in June…..
Exelon’s Three Mile Island station, scene of the worst accident in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear energy, may not be so lucky. After failing to clear at the past three PJM auctions, the plant is at risk of early retirement. It hasn’t made a profit in five years and remains “economically challenged” given the lack of federal or Pennsylvania energy policies that value zero-emissions nuclear power, the company said.Exelon’s other nuclear plants in PJM cleared in the auction. Oyster Creek didn’t take part, since it’s scheduled to shut in 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-24/buoyed-by-state-aid-u-s-nuclear-plant-still-fails-at-auction
May 26, 2017
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Times 21st May 2017 A Chinese state-owned power giant has set its sights on the £15bn nuclear plant planned for the Cumbrian coast. State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) is considering investing in Toshiba’s troubled NuGen
project at Moorside — risking a collision with Theresa May and her new interventionist approach to foreign takeovers.
Industry sources said a delegation from SNPTC and its parent, State Power Investment Corporation, was due in London. Eight senior officials will meet executives from NuGen and Britain’s atomic power trade body, the Nuclear Industry Association, on Tuesday.
It is unclear whether the election hiatus will hinder meetings with Whitehall officials. The talks underline China’s ambitions in nuclear power after another state-owned giant, China General Nuclear, bankrolled the £18bn Hinkley Point plant in Somerset. CGN took a 33% stake in Hinkley but its ultimate ambition is to build a power station, fuelled
with its own home-grown reactors, at Bradwell in Essex.
Sources said SNPTC could seek to power NuGen with its own reactor — a derivative of Westinghouse’s AP1000 model, which is planned for the site. SNPTC could not be reached for comment. NuGen said it was exploring a “universe of
options” for investment. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/chinese-eye-rescue-of-nuclear-plant-qlj09k5wn
May 22, 2017
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business and costs, China, politics international, UK |
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SCANA executives received $3.5 million in bonuses since 2008, May 20, 2017
May 22, 2017
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business and costs, USA |
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Plant Vogtle: Georgia’s nuclear ‘renaissance’ now a financial quagmire By Russell Grantham and Johnny Edwards – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution May 19, 2017
Southern Company’s chief executive has said more than once that the giant utility’s project to build two more nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle would be history-making.
He may be right, but not in the way he meant.
Years behind schedule, billions over budget, and with a key contractor’s bankruptcy clouding its future, the troubled Vogtle project near Augusta is fast becoming Exhibit A for why no U.S. utility before Atlanta-based Southern had tried building a new reactor in 30-plus years.
Most Georgians who get electric bills could eventually pay for overruns on the project that are likely to grow. Customers of Southern subsidiary Georgia Power already pay a Vogtle-related surcharge that adds about $100 a year to the average residential bill, with the ultimate effect on ratepayers yet to be determined.
Also uncertain is how the project will get done.
On March 29, Westinghouse Electric, the company that designed the new Vogtle reactors and eventually became the primary contractor on the project, filed for bankruptcy. As part of its Chapter 11 restructuring, the company is expected to ditch the fixed-cost contracts that led to billions in losses on its work at Plant Vogtle and a similar nuclear project in South Carolina.
Under an interim deal announced a week ago, Southern and Georgia Power plan to take over running the Vogtle expansion, which is not quite half-done. Westinghouse will still help, but in a smaller role.
Beyond that they face a more elemental decision: spend billions more finishing the reactors, convert the project to another type of power plant such as natural gas, or just abandon it — leaving two dormant cooling towers and skeletal buildings.
A Georgia Power spokesman said the company is doing a “full-scale” study to “determine the best path forward.”
The utility has acknowledged that Westinghouse’s bankruptcy will mean more delays and costs. The elected members of the Georgia Public Service Commission eventually will determine the actual construction costs to be borne by ratepayers.
Meanwhile, Southern CEO Thomas Fanning, who as recently as last year said the project was going “beautifully,” got a 2016 compensation package worth $15.8 million, including a $2.7 million bonus………
Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, said the utility underestimated the costs of replacing a vanished industry of nuclear construction workers and suppliers.
……….Westinghouse’s financial meltdown has rattled even the most loyal Plant Vogtle supporters – those living in the shadows of the towers in rural Burke County, population 23,000, who rely on the plant for a stable economy and a flush tax digest……..
History repeats itself
Delays, cost overruns and contractor snarls were not part of the picture government and industry officials painted in 2009 when state regulators approved the project to add the new reactors.
In addition to arguing it was needed to help power Georgia’s growth, Fanning called the Vogtle expansion a “national priority” to help revive the U.S. nuclear power industry. It would be a “renaissance,” he said.
But construction of Plant Vogtle’s first two reactors had provided a vivid example of the potential complications.
Plant Vogtle was conceived around 1970, with an original cost estimate of about $660 million. Construction was expected to take about eight years. Then, Three Mile Island happened. Regulations tightened. Demand for materials and interest rates shot up in the 1980s.
Construction took 13 years. The final price tag: around $9 billion…….
However the Vogtle expansion plays out from here, it won’t likely be held up as the model it was intended to provide.
Of the dozens of new reactor projects once being considered for licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, all have been shelved except the Vogtle and South Carolina projects. Georgia Power has tabled plans to study a new nuclear plant south of Columbus, citing slowing demand growth……. http://www.myajc.com/business/plant-vogtle-georgia-nuclear-renaissance-now-financial-quagmire/5l16IFMFICknSCeI7RXG6J/
May 20, 2017
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business and costs, USA |
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nuclear-news 