"FirstEnergy: A Major Utility Seeks a Subsidized Turnaround"

IEEFA (the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis) has published a report, FirstEnergy: A Major Utility Seeks a Subsidized Turnaround. It is written by Tom Sanzillo, IEEFA Director of Finance, and Cathy Kunkel, IEEFA Fellow. It includes analysis of FirstEnergy's proposal to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, for a multi-billion dollar ratepayer bailout of FirstEnergy's Sammis and OVEC coal burners, as well as its Davis-Besse atomic reactor.

"Cleveland-based institute blasts FirstEnergy, its 'financial spiral'"

As reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has warned about FirstEnergy's attempts at "regulatory capture and ratepayer bailouts as it struggles to reverse a deepening spiral of debt service and revenue declines."

FirstEnergy is seeking permission from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) for a $3 billion ratepayer bailout, in order to prop up its uncompetitive Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo, and its Sammis coal plant on the Ohio River in southeast Ohio.

Beyond Nuclear is most familiar with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) regulatory capture of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Beyond Nuclear, and environmental allies Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio, have been officially intervening against FENOC's application for a 20-year license extension at the age-degraded, problem-plagued Davis-Besse reactor since Dec. 27, 2010. Every single contention filed by the environmental coalition's legal counsel, Terry Lodge of Toledo, has been vociferously opposed not only by FENOC's team of lawyers, but also by NRC staff and NRC Office of General Counsel. And every single environmental coalition contention has ultimately been rejected by the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, and/or the NRC Commissioners.

In his July 2013 report "Renaissance in Reverse," Vermont Law School energy economist Mark Cooper listed Davis-Besse as one of the top reactors in the U.S. at near-term risk for permanent shutdown.

Cost overruns and schedule delays at proposed new reactors in GA, SC, and TN

We told them so. As the environmental movement warned 14 years ago, when the nuclear relapse was hatched by the Bush/Cheney administration, proposed new reactors at Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia, Summer 2 & 3 in South Carolina, and Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee are suffering major cost overruns and construction schedule delays.

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has published an update on Vogtle 3 & 4, which currently are suffering a 21-month schedule delay, and $1.4 billion cost overrun. The delays could well get worse, at a staggering cost increase of $2 million per day of delay!

Similarly, as reported by SRS Watch, delays of up to three years, and cost overruns topping $500 million, are afflicting the Summer 2 & 3 proposed new reactors in SC.

Note that those April 1st projected opening dates for the new reactors at Voglte and Summer, listed in the updates above, are no April Fool's joke. GA and SC ratepayers are already being gouged for the new reactors' troubled contstruction, on their electricity bills.

Vogtle 3 & 4's financial risks also now implicate federal taxpayers, in the form of a $6.5 billion loan guarantee, likely to soon grow to an $8.3 billion loan guarantee. This is compliments of the Obama administration. So, if Vogtle 3 & 4 default on their loan repayment, federal taxpayers will be left holding the bag. This is 15 times more taxpayer money at risk than was lost in the Solyndra solar loan guarantee scandal. And that risk, of Vogtle 3 & 4 defaulting on its loan repayment, was judged, years ago, by the likes of the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office, as a much greater risk than Solyndra defaulting on its loan repayment.

Vogtle 3 & 4, as well as Summer 2 & 3, are Toshiba-Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. They are experimental, never having been built before anywhere in the world, although AP-1000s are also under construction in China.

The proposed new reactor in Tennessee, that is also suffering cost overruns and schedule delays, is the Tennessee Valley Authority's long-mothballed Watts Bar Unit 2.

To add to the irony, the existing reactors at Vogtle, Units 1 & 2, were the poster child for cost overruns in the last generation of reactor construction, coming in at 1,300% their originally estimated cost!

And the operational Watts Bar Unit 1 took 23 years to build, from 1973 to 1996!

Update on August 14, 2014 by admin

PowerMag has reported on the construction schedule delays at V.C. Summer 2 & 3 in South Carolina. Included is a link, reporting on the now-delayed construction schedule for the project.

Two dozen groups urge State of MA to divest from Entergy due to safety and economic risks at Pilgrim

Beyond Nuclear has signed onto an effort spearheaded by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, and endorsed by two dozen local groups, to urge the State of Massachusetts to divest more than $8 million invested in Entergy. The signatory groups cited the economic and safety risks associated with the nuclear utility's problem-plagued Pilgrim atomic reactor. A June 4th letter was sent to Governor Patrick and Treasurer Grossman, as described in a June 9th press release.

NRC recently placed Pilgrim on its "degraded" performance short list. The only other reactor in the country with a worse performance designation is FitzPatrick in upstate New York. Both Pilgrim and FitzPatrick are General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors, identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4.

Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor in Michigan was similarly designated one of the worst performers in the U.S. a couple years ago, after not one but two near-misses in 2011, and yet another one in 2012, as documented by David Lochbaum at Union of Concerned Scientists.

A year ago, energy economist Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School identified Entergy's six merchant reactors (half its national fleet), including Pilgrim, as at risk of near-term shutdown. This is due to a variety of factors, including economic uncompetitiveness and needed, costly safety repairs. In August 2013, Cooper was proven right, when Entergy announced the permanent shutdown of Vermont Yankee (another Entergy GE BWR Mark I) by the end of 2014.

Update on June 11, 2014 by admin

The State Treasurer of Massachusetts has responded to the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, expressing strong support for the efforts to permanently close Entergy's Pilgrim atomic reactor. However, the State Treasurer has indicated that divestment of state pension funds from Entergy would require the enactment of legislation -- that is, action by the state legislature, as well as the governor.

Markey, Burgess Release Report Showing Legal Concerns over Energy Dept.’s Deals with Uranium Enriching Company

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)A new GAO report, requested by U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass., photo left) and U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), finds that the shuttered U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) facility received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of uranium, while ignoring laws and losing taxpayer money.

The report details a pattern of actions by DOE that kept USEC’s facility in Paducah, Kentucky open and subsidized the development of questionable centrifuge technology at its Ohio facility, even as the company was rated as junk bond status, threatened with de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange, and ultimately spiraled into bankruptcy.

“Our government has kept this uranium company on life support, wasting money and flouting the law, even though it was clear that it would end up in bankruptcy. This is the kind of government waste that Americans just don’t understand,” said Senator Markey, who is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “It’s time to commit this junk technology to the junk bin.”

Some of the uranium involved is associated with supplying replacement tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons.

Sen. Markey has issued a press release, including a summary, and a link to the full 112-page GAO report.