"Prefab Nuclear Plants Prove Just as Expensive"

"Burning money" graphic by Gene Case, Avenging AngelsRebecca Smith has reported in the Wall Street Journal that the "[m]odular method has run into costly delays and concerns about who will bear the brunt of the expense."

Joseph "Buzz" Miller, Georgia Power's executive vice president for nuclear development, is quoted as saying "The promise of modular construction has yet to be seen."

The two proposed new Toshiba-Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, Vogtle Units 3 & 4, that Georgia Power is building are years behind schedule, and billions of dollars over budget. $8.3 billion in federal nuclear loan guarantees, awarded by the Obama administration at no cost to the nuclear utilities, would leave taxpayers holding the bag if the project defaults on its loan repayment.

That's 15 times the amount of taxpayer money at risk than was lost to the U.S. Treasury with the Solyndra solar loan guarantee default several years ago.

The article also reports: "Stephen Byrne, president of South Carolina Electric & Gas [SCE&G], recently told investors his company is in discussions with Westinghouse and CB&I [Chicago Bridge & Iron] about the cost overruns and who will bear the burden. Utilities want those added costs to be shared, getting vendors to pay for some of the added expense but vendors are examining the claims. 'We feel that there’s an opportunity for a settlement in the future,' he said."

The two AP1000s under construction at Summer nuclear power plant in SC have been financed by repeated "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) surcharges on ratepayer electricity bills over the past many years. Such a "nuclear tax" is illegal in most states.

These cost overruns and schedule delays were to be expected, based on the previous history of nuclear power in the U.S. and overseas.

In 1985, Forbes wrote "The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale."

In fact, ironically enough, Vogtle Units 1 & 2 were the poster children for cost overruns, coming in at 1,300% their originally estimated price tag.

And the Watts Bar Units 1 & 2 are the case studies in atomic reactor schedule delays. Watts Bar took from 1973 to 1996 to become operational. Watts Bar 2 began construction in 1972, and is still struggling to begin generating electricity, 23 years later!

Such problems extend overseas, as well. A decade-long delay, and huge cost overruns, at the Olkiluoto new reactor construction site in Finland have led to major lawsuits between the nuclear utility, TVO, and the bankrupt French reactor vendor, Areva, to determine who is liable.

Cleveland Plain Dealer editorializes against Davis-Besse bailout

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has published an editorial, "PUCO should reject FirstEnergy rate request."

And Beyond Nuclear is heading back to Columbus, Ohio, to resist FirstEnergy's attempted ratepayer robbery, to the tune of $3 billion, to prop up its dirty, dangerous, and uncompetitive Davis-Besse atomic reactor, and Sammis coal burner. See posting above, regarding this August 8th event.

Update on July 22, 2015 by admin

Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, got a letter to the editor published, supporting the Cleveland Plain Dealer's opposition to the bailout.

FirstEnergy AND the Akron Beacon Journal caught in a "compromising position" re: the $3 billion coal and nuclear bailout

On July 10, 2015, the Akron Beacon Journal ran the unfortunately titled editorial "A compromising position for FirstEnergy and Ohio." Through some acrobatics, the editorial came out in favor of Ohio ratepayers proping up FirstEnergy's dirty, dangerous, and expensive Davis-Besse atomic reactor, and its Sammis coal burner, to the tune of a $3 billion surcharge.

Perhaps this odd conclusion should not have come as a surpirse, as FirstEnergy is headquartered in Akron. As Upton Sinclair famously wrote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Salary, ad revenues, or other financial favors.

The Hastings Group immediately responded to the editorial with a Tweet, blasting it as "hometown cheerleading."

Beyond Nuclear responded with a letter to the editor, but the paper never ran it nor even acknowledged receipt. So we post our LTE below:

Is your provocative title a tongue-in-cheek finger wag at the “cheeky request” of FirstEnergy? The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel has estimated the proposed bailout could amount to a $3 billion surcharge on Ohioans’ electricity bills, to prop up the dirty, dangerous, and uncompetitive Sammis coal burner and Davis-Besse atomic reactor.

Or is it a Freudian slip, what with FirstEnergy caught in the act, red-handed, attempting to screw ratepayers, yet again?

You wrote “No surprise that environmental groups and consumer advocates have voiced loud opposition to the FirstEnergy request.” Well, it’s also no surprise that your editorial engaged in “hometown cheerleading,” as the Hastings Group tweeted, on behalf of FirstEnergy’s bailout request, as the company is headquartered in Akron. 

I took part in the PUCO’s Akron public hearing last January. It was heartbreaking to hear more than one young person testify that even higher electricity bills could spell homelessness for them. It was good to see an AARP representative speak out on behalf of seniors, who might not live long enough to see any return on their involuntary investment in FirstEnergy’s coveted multi-billion dollar bailout, intended “to ensure the profitable operation of two power plants during the next 15 years.”

What is most ironic is that FirstEnergy lobbied for competitive electricity marketplace rules a decade or moreago. It had hoped to boost profits, by freeing itself from the guaranteed returns of regulated monopoly status. Instead, it now cannot compete, so is seeking to gouge ratepayers.

Did the Brattle Group, commissioned by the nuclear industry-funded Nuclear Matters PR front group, look at the economic losses to Ohio stemming from FirstEnergy’s successful sabotage of energy efficiency, and renewable sources such as solar photovoltaics and wind power?

How many jobs will be lost, as Ohioans subsidize uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants, and businesses seek greener pastures, where the electric rates aren’t so unnecessarily exorbitant?

Won’t the decommissioning of Davis-Besse, the clean up of radioactive contamination on the Great Lakes shore, and the safeguarding of more than 660 tons of high-level radioactive waste stored on-site, mean many hundreds or even thousands of jobs, for decades to come?

The $3 billion bailout would just about replace Davis-Besse’s severely cracked, and worsening, concrete containment shell. Only FirstEnergy has no plan to make that vital safety repair, nor does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission require it. Thus will communities downwind and downstream live in peril of a catastrophic radioactivity release from the age-degraded atomic reactor that has already had more close calls than any other in the country.

You also touted “A coal-burning Sammis plant, equipped with the best-available pollution controls, arguably has a place then.” But FirstEnergy has no plans to install Carbon Capture and Storage at Sammis, for that too would cost many hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report has just affirmed, yet again, central station thermal-electric power plants, most especially aged atomic reactors, due to cost and risk (and of course coal burners, due to climate chaos) are on the way out. Renewables and efficiency are the future – if we are to have one. FirstEnergy’s bailout request to PUCO may have seemed to make sense in the 1950s, but it sure doesn’t any more.

Sincerely,

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear

Beyond Nuclear has intervened against the Davis-Besse 2017-2037 license extension for the past four and a half years.

Davis-Besse's attempted $3 billion ratepayer robbery hearings before the PUCO postponed yet again!

At Davis-Besse's front entrance in Oak Harbor, OH, Humpty Dumpty and Homer Simpson protest the Snow Job by recreating the Blizzard of '78--FirstEnergy and NRC's false root cause explanation of the severe cracking of Davis-Besse's Shield Building, that worsens with every freeze.The hearings were scheduled for April...then postponed to June...then to July...and now to August!

Pat Marida, coordinator of Ohio Sierra Club's Nuclear-Free Committee, reports:

"THE PUBLIC UTILTIES COMMISSION OF OHIO (PUCO) HAS POSTPONED EVIDENTIARY HEARINGS ON FIRSTENERGY’S BAILOUT REQUEST FOR WHAT I RECALL IS THE FOURTH TIME, TO AUGUST 31, FOR WHICH DATE WE WILL RESCHEDULE OUR RALLY.

Postponing is likely a good sign. PUCO has gotten a lot of push-back from the public, showing statistics that contradict the propaganda being fed to them by FirstEnergy. They will have a harder time rubberstamping the request and any complicity with industry would stand out.

RALLY AUGUST 31 with the Sierra Club and others at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.  Tell them, "DON'T CHARGE ELECTRIC RATEPAYERS $3 BILLION TO BAIL OUT FirstEnergy's unprofitable coal plants and the aging, accident-plagued Davis-Besse nuclear reactor!

EMAIL THE PUCO and tell them No Nuclear and Coal Bailouts!  No rate hikes to subsidize FirstEnergy!  The PUCO is seeking public comments.  Here is the address: Email docketing@puc.state.oh.us and begin your statement with “Please file this as an opposition comment under CASE #: 14-1297-EL-SSO.”

FirstEnergy led the fight that overturned Ohio's renewable and efficiency standards. BOO!  Now the PUCO is going to decide whether to hand them an enormous monetary gift, at the expense of the public health and purse. 

                                                NO BAILOUTS!  NO KIDDING!"

Pat mentioned "at the expense of the public health and purse" in her alert above.

Here is a passage from a Davis-Besse backgrounder Beyond Nuclear published a few years ago, on how bad the public health and property damage would be if Davis-Besse has a catastrophic radioactivity release:

"How  bad  would  the  casualties  and  property  damage  be?  The  NRC-­commissioned,  Sandia  National  Lab-­conducted “Calculation  of  Reactor  Accident  Consequences”  (CRAC­‐2)  report [officially titled as the 1982 Sandia Siting Study or as NUREG/CR-2239] sheds  terrifying  light  on  this  question.  NRC  actually  tried  to  bury  the  report,  but  U.S.  Congressman [now U.S. Senator]  Ed Markey  (D‐MA),  who wrote  a  four‐page  letter  to  NRC  Chairman  Jaczko, expressing  his  concerns  about  the  recently  revealed  shield  building  cracking  at  Davis­‐Besse) [46] forced  CRAC‐2’s  publication  via  his  congressional  hearing  powers  in  1982.

CRAC­‐2  lists  the  following  casualty  and  property  damage  figures from  a  catastrophic  radioactivity  release  at Davis­‐Besse:  1,400  Peak  Early  Fatalities;  73,000  Peak  Early  Injuries;  10,000  Peak  Cancer  Deaths;  $84  billion  in  property  damage.  But  CRAC­‐2  was  based  on  1970 U.S.  Census  data;  populations  around  Davis‐Besse  have  grown  significantly  in  the  past  42  years,  meaning  that  those  casualty  figures  would  now  be  much  worse.[47] And  when  adjusted  for  inflation  from  1982  dollar  figures,  property  damage  would  today  surmount  $187  billion in  2010  dollar  figures.[48]"

And the CRAC-2 report did not account for a severely cracked concrete containment Shield Building, which cracks worse every time it freezes at Davis-Besse! That's why we entitled our backgrounder "What Humpty Dumpty doesn't want you to know: Davis-Besse's cracked containment Snow Job." (see image, above left)

Ironically, that $3 billion would be about what it would take to replace Davis-Besse's Shield Building. But FirstEnergy has no such plans, nor does NRC have any such requirement. FirstEnergy would simply pocket that $3 billion, at the expense of ratepayers. It would line the pockets of FirstEnergy shareholders and corporate executives. No structural repairs would be made, using that money, at Davis-Besse. This is unacceptable.

Please take action! Urge the PUCO to reject FirstEnergy's bailout request (see PUCO's email address, above).

COOPER: "NUCLEAR WAR AGAINST THE FUTURE" MAY DELAY … BUT WILL NOT STOP … THE RISE OF RENEWABLES, ENERGY EFFICIENCY, AND 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY

Dr. Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment Vermont Law SchoolAs posted by the Hastings Group:

Expert: Pandering to Nuclear in EPA Clean Power Plan, IL and NY Bailouts of Exelon, and FirstEnergy Reactor Prop-up Plan in OH, Only Postpone the Transformation of the Electricity Sector… at Considerable Expense to Ratepayers.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 17, 2015 – The 20^th Century model of large baseload electricity generation, including nuclear reactors, is in an irreversible decline in the face of the emerging 21^st Century decentralized power model relying on renewables, energy efficiency, and technology-based demand management, according to a new report by Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School.

The Cooper report, "Power Shift: The Deployment of a 21^st Century Electricity Sector and the Nuclear War to Stop It," is available online at
http://www-assets.vermontlaw.edu/Assets/iee/Power_Shift_Mark_Cooper_June_2015.PDF.

For policymakers and ratepayers, Cooper's stark conclusion means that last-ditch efforts to prop-up nuclear power with amendments to the EPA Clean Power Plan, state-level subsidies (e.g., Exelon's "nuclear blackmail" threat of Illinois lawmakers over five reactors in that state and FirstEnergy's bailout scheme involving the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio), attacks in Indiana, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and other states on renewable energy standards, and preferential rate-setting arrangements (e.g., Exelon's Ginna reactor at Rochester, New York) are costly detours on the road to a much more consumer friendly, reliable and sustainable low carbon electricity sector … (more) …

To read the full 06/17/15 news release, click here.
To read the new "Power Shift" report, click here.
To listen to streaming audio of the 06/17/15 news event, click here. (Available after 4 p.m. EDT on 06/17/15.)

MEDIA CONTACT: Alex Frank, (703) 276-3264 or afrank@hastingsgroup.com.

Update on June 18, 2015 by admin

Just two days before Cooper's report was unveiled, Beyond Nuclear joined with allies from Sierra Club's Nuclear-Free Campaign, Ohio Citizen Action, Nukefree.org, and others at the Public Utility Commission of Ohio's headquarters in Columbus, to protest the proposed multi-billion dollar bailout of Davis-Besse near Toledo. Hearings on the proposed ratepayer robbery have now been postponed twice, first from April to June, and now from June to July, likely in direct response to growing public opposition.

Meanwhile, First Solar, headquartered in Toledo just to the west of the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, announced yet another major breakthrough in photovoltaic technology.