Decision to abandon South Carolina nuclear construction project could come in next 30 days

Thanks to Scott Stapf of the Hastings Group, for his tweet above, which points to the World Nuclear News article "Scana to evaluate Summer options."

The Summer 2 & 3 new reactors -- Toshiba-Westinghouse AP1000s -- are being financed by Construction Work in Progress (CWIP), also known as advance cost recovery, made legal in South Carolina by the Base Load Review Act.

CWIP is illegal in most states.

Already, after nine rate hikes in just the past several years, nearly 20% of South Carolina ratepayers' payments on their electric bills go toward the construction of Summer 2 & 3. If Summer 2 and/or 3 are cancelled, ratepayers will have invested billions of dollars, without receiving so much as one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

But at least if the two reactors are cancelled, the people of South Carolina won't face decades of "routine" radioactivity releases, as well as the risk of catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity due to reactor core meltdowns or high-level radioactive waste storage pool fires.