OH agrees to let FirstEnergy Nuclear impose $132.5 million a year surcharge on its 1.9 million customers

"Burning money" graphic art by Gene Case, Avening AngelsTom Henry of the Toledo Blade has Tweeted out his column on the ratepayer-funded bailout, now approved by the State of Ohio -- to the tune of $132.5 million per year -- of FirstEnergy Nuclear's dangerously age-degraded Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore. Beyond Nuclear has led opposition to Davis-Besse's 2017-2037 license extension since 2010. Davis-Besse has had more close calls with catastrophe than any other U.S. reactor, and -- FirstEnergy admits -- has had a severely cracked (and ever worsening) concrete containment, which could well fail to contain catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity in the event of a meltdown.

Beyond Nuclear has also worked alongside Sierra Club, Ohio Environmental Council, Environmental Defense Fund, AARP, Public Citizen, ratepayer advocacy groups, and many others, to oppose requests from FirstEnergy to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) for ratepayer-funded bailouts of $4 to 8 billion (yes, with a B). FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) ultimately put the kabosh on this larger attempted ratepayer robbery, but the State of Ohio has just blessed the burdening of its own citizens to the tune of $132.5 million/year, nonetheless.