Vogtle 1 & 2 cost nearly 30 times their original estimate!

NRC file photo of Vogtle Units 1 & 2Bobbie Paul of Women's Action for New Directions told the Inter Press Service that "the existing reactors at Vogtle cost 8.9 billion dollars for two reactors, when it was originally promised to be 600 million dollars for four reactors."

A price tag of $4.45 billion per reactor is 29.7 times more than the initial cost estimate of $150 million apiece.

In this sense, the Vogtle nuclear power plant (photo, left) can be considered the poster child for atomic cost overruns in the past generation of construction. How ironic, then, that President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu chose Vogtle 3 & 4 as the first recipient for a conditional nuclear loan guarantee putting $8.3 billion of federal taxpayer funding at risk!