Fermi 3 proposed new reactor price tag skyrockets to $20 billion

An artist's rendition of the $20 billion boondoggle ESBWR targeted to be built at Fermi 3 On Feb. 19, 2013, the environmental coalition intervening in opposition to the construction and operation of Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor filed new and amended contentions in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Final Environmental Impact Statement about the proposal. The coalition issued a news release. As environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge says in the press release, Fermi 3's price tag has skyrocketed to $20 billion.

This, despite the large subsidies the ESBWR design and the Fermi 3 project have enjoyed, at federal taxpayer expense. Detroit Edison's COLA (combined Construction and Operating License Application) licensing expenses are elibible for subsidized "reimbursement," via federal funding provided under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, part of $35.5 billion in nuclear power subsidies provided by that law ($22.5 billion in federal nuclear power loan guarantees, and another $13 billion in various other subsidies).

In addition, the ESBWR was chosen as one of only two reactor designs to win subsidies towards its engineering research and development from the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of the unfortunately named Nuclear Power 2010 program, given the deployment delays the troubled design, and Fermi 3 project, have suffered. Ed Lyman at Union of Concerned Scientists reported at a press conference in June 2010 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had 6,000 Requests for Additional Information (RAIs) about the half-baked ESBWR design for reactor vendor General Electric-Hitachi. When testifying before congressional committees in the past several years about the progress of the Nuclear Power 2010 program, Obama administration Energy Secretary Steven Chu had little to nothing to say about the lackluster ESBWR design. In fact, several nuclear utility companies canceled their orders for ESBWRs in 2008-2009, leaving Fermi 3 as the last U.S. ESBWR proposal standing.

Documents related to environmental intervenors' filing of Feb. 19, 2013 in opposition to the General Electric-Hitachi so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (or ESBWR, see image, left) proposed to be constructed and operated at the Fermi nuclear power plant in Monroe County, Michigan, on the Lake Erie shoreline, as well as documents reveal the major schedule delays afflicting the project:

Intervenors' Feb. 19, 2013 "MOTION FOR RESUBMISSION OF CONTENTIONS 3 AND 13, FOR RESUBMISSION OF CONTENTION 23 OR ITS ADMISSION AS A NEW CONTENTION, AND FOR ADMISSION OF NEW CONTENTIONS 26 AND 27";

Current Fermi 3 COLA Review Schedule (Feb. 15, 2013), showing 2 years and 10 month of delay;

Original Fermi 3 Schedule (June 30, 2009).