ADVISORY: Experts discuss concerns with Westinghouse bankruptcy filing and the possible impacts on new nuclear construction projects in Georgia and South Carolina

As reported in a Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) press advisory.

Note that $8.3 billion of taxpayer-backed nuclear loan guarantees are at risk of being lost, if the Vogtle 3 & 4 new reactor construction project defaults on its loan repayment. This is 15 times the amount of taxpayer money lost in the Solyndra solar loan guarantee default, as Michael Mariotte of NIRS pointed out many years ago.

Critics of the nuclear loan guarantee program warned about such risks in May 2001, when the Cheney Energy Task Force Report first floated the proposal of nuclear loan guarantees; again in 2005 when nuclear loan guarantees were made legal by passage of the Energy Policy Act; and again in 2007, when Congress and George W. Bush approved more than $20 billion worth of new reactor loan guarantees; and again leading up to the 2014 Obama administration approval of the $8.3 billion nuclear loan guarantee for Vogtle 3 and 4, without requiring any skin in the game by any of the companies involved -- an economic moral hazard with a radioactive twist!

Update on March 30, 2017 by admin

Sara Barczak of SACE has issued this update:

Our online PR is updated to include the audiocast from today’s telepresser on the Westinghouse bankruptcy and some specifics on the GA & SC under construction nuclear projects.

Updated PR here: http://www.cleanenergy.org/2017/03/29/fate-southern-company-scana-new-nuclear-power-projects-unknown-lead-contractor-westinghouse-files-bankruptcy/

That PR now includes:

***UPDATED RESOURCES***

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  • Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Executive Director for SACE, delivered the following statement during a telepress conference held on March 30, 2017.
  • Full recording from telepress conference held on March 30th can be downloaded here.
  • For names and titles of experts on telepress conference, go here.