"Experts warned of nuke work overruns"

The Vogtle Unit 3 reactor pressure vessel, parked in front the Vogtle Unit 4 containment vessell bottom head, May 2013. Photo credit: Georgia Power.As reported by Matt Kempner in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the two new atomic reactors under construction at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Georgia are "more than three years behind schedule," and costs for just one partner, Georgia Power (a subsidiary of Southern Nuclear) "is at least $1.4 billion, or 23 percent, over original projections."

The Vogtle 3 & 4 construction project (see photo, left) is being financed through "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP), or "advanced cost recovery" -- that is, simply surcharging ratepayer electricity bills. This practice is illegal in most states, but has been made legal in Georgia, as well as South Carolina -- where two more new reactors at Summer nuclear power plant are also under construction (and also suffering schedule delays and massive cost overruns).

Highly controversial CWIP resulted in the loss to ratepayers of $3 billion, for a cancelled new nuclear power plant. Somehow that massive amount of money was spent, even though ground was not even broken on the failed project.

The Georgia Public Service Commission, the same agency that approved ratepayer CWIP surcharges in the first place, will now decide on whether or not ratepayers will eat the cost overruns at Vogtle 3 & 4.

In addition to gouging ratepayers, Georgia Power/Southern Nuclear is also gouging federal taxpayers, compliments of the Obama administration. In Feb. 2010, President Obama himself made the announcement that his U.S. Department of Energy was awarding $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to the Vogtle 3 & 4 project. In addition to the loan guarantees, the actual loan is coming from U.S. taxpayers as well -- from the taxpayer-funded U.S. Finance Bank. In that regard, the federal nuclear loan guarantee is already a failure -- it was supposed to entice private investors to actually loan the money to the project.

Incredibly, the DOE didn't even charge a penny in credit subsidy fee. This means Southern Nuclear/Georgia Power has no skin in the game. If the loan repayment is defaulted upon, taxpayers will be left holding the bag, entirely.

Vogtle 3 & 4 have put at risk 15 times more money than was lost in the Solyndra solar loan guarantee default. And Vogtle 3 & 4's risk of default is actually significantly higher than Solyndra's risk ever was.

(Re: the RPV in the photo above, it actually was involved in a transport accident at the Port of Savannah in Jan. 2013, when its transport train carriage collapsed under its massive weight. It then limped back to the Port, where it was exposed to the elements for an extended period, covered only partially by run of the mill tarps.)