Despite potential cancellation, Florida ratepayers may still have to pay for billion dollar CWIP boondoggle!

Graphic courtesy of Fairewinds Associates

As reported by the Tampa Bay Times, Progess Energy has announced an indefinite suspension of the construction plans for two Toshiba-Westinghouse so-called "Advanced Passive 1000" (AP1000) atomic reactors targeted at the greenfield (no old reactors already there) site at Levy, Florida. That's the good news. The bad news is that Florida ratepayers are nonetheless locked into paying "advance" charges for the new reactors on their electricity bills month after month for years to come, even though the reactors may never get built. Such "Construction Work in Progress" charges are illegal in most states, although have been made legal in such states as Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia in an effort to grease the skids for new atomic reactor proposals, at ratepayer expense.

By the end of last year, Progress Energy's 1.6 million Florida ratepayers had already made $545 million in "advance" payments on their electricity bills toward the Levy new reactors, or an average of about $340 per person. Progress Energy fully intends to extract yet another $555 million from its ratepayers in the years ahead, or another $350 per person, whether or not the reactors actually get built and fired up.

The Levy new reactors have been a case study in cost overruns. As the article reports, Progress Energy first estimated in 2006 that a single AP1000 would cost as little as $4 billion. The very next year, the projected price tag had jumped to $10 billion per reactor. A year after that, Progress added a second new reactor to the proposal, and estimated the cost at a total of $17 billion. But last year, the price projection had reached $22 billion for the twin AP1000s.

The project has also been a case study in schedule delays. In 2006, Progress said its new reactor would fire up in 2016. By 2009, Progress admitted the opening date had slipped two years into the future, to 2018. By 2010, the opening date had retreated yet further, to 2021. Progress is now admitting that the project won't open till 2027, if at all.

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds Associates in Vermont and expert witness for an environmental coalition opposed to new AP1000s targeted throughout the Southeast, was quoted as saying "It's a dramatic strategy change (by Progress)...Now, it looks like they're retreating." Gundersen has identified a major safety flaw in the AP1000's supposedly "advanced, passive" design, which could actively pump hazardous radioactivity into the environment during an accident (see graphic, above).

Fukushima further "explodes the myth" of "nuclear renaissance"

Images such as the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 seared into the public mind internationally.In a new report entitled "Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Economics: Historically, Accidents Dim the Prospects for Nuclear Reactor Construction; Fukushima Will Have a Major Impact," Dr. Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment compares the cost increases for new reactor construction -- due to increased nuclear safety regulation in the aftermath of the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown -- to escalating costs that can be expected after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Cooper points out, however, the new reactor construction costs were already skyrocketing before the TMI and Fukushima meltdowns -- but the accidents accelerated the cost increases dramatically.

He concludes: "From a big picture perspective, Fukushima has had and is likely to continue to have an electrifying impact because it combines the most powerful message from TMI on cost escalation with the most powerful message from Chernobyl on the risk of nuclear reactors in a nation where it was not supposed to happen. And, it has taken place in an environment where information and images flow instantaneously around the world, so the public sees the drama and trauma of losing control of a nuclear reaction in real time."

Cooper points out that of the dozens of new reactors proposed in the U.S. over the past decade have largely dwindled to a handful, such as the four reactors targeted at GA and SC, which are subsidized by Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) subsidies in those states. 

CWIP-subsidized new reactors proposed in GA & SC receive NRC design approval

As reported by the New York Times, the five Commissioners of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today approved the design certification for Toshiba-Westinghouse's so-called "Advanced Passive 1000" (AP1000, which is actually an 1,100 Megawatt-electric reactor) reactor design. This would allow construction of two new reactors at Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, and two new reactors at Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina, to accelerate. The approval comes despite a major design flaw identified by nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, working on behalf of an environmental coalition opposing new AP1000s proposed across the Southeast. Both the Vogtle and Summer new reactor projects enjoyed ratepayer subsidies in the form of current "Construction Work in Progress" charges on electricity bills, something that is illegal in most states. In addition, the Vogtle project received an $8.3 billion nuclear loan guarantee, announced by President Obama himself in February, 2010. If actually built, this would be the first new reactor order actually constructed in the U.S. since October 1973. All other orders after that point were either cancelled outright, or abandoned midway.

Update on December 22, 2011 by admin

U.S. Energy Secretary Chu praised NRC's design certification of the AP1000. Not only did the Energy Department award the two proposed new Vogtle AP1000s an $8.33 billion nuclear loan guarantee, at taxpayer financial risk -- DOE also chose the AP1000 as a "Nuclear Power 2010" program design, subsidizing its engineering design as well as regulatory licensing costs in a 50-50 cost-share with industry, another taxpayer giveaway to an already heavily subsidized, filthy rich industry.

Nuclear industry suffers major defeat in Iowa

Green State Solutions' logoFriends of the Earth has just reported a major victory against new reactors: "Despite intense industry lobbying and contributions, Iowa Senate adjourns without passing ill-advised ‘cost recovery’ bill"! Congratulations to all the groups who fought so hard to win this important victory! Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear met one of them, Mike Carberry, director of Green State Solutions, who visited the Beyond Nuclear information table and attended Kevin's "Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer!" workshop at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin this past Summer Solstice. Mike ordered a whole box of Beyond Nuclear's beautiful wind power and solar power postcards, in order to be non-violently "armed" if and when this battle has to be re-fought next session in the Iowa state legislature. You too can order our postcards. Use them to urge your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to write their elected officials, to demand a renewables renaissance, and an abolition of dirty, dangerous, and expensive nuclear power.

FPL halts two new reactors targeted at Turkey Point!

In what appears to be a major victory for anti-nuclear efforts in Florida, the state's Public Utility Commission  (PUC) has rejected Florida Power and Light's (FPL) request for a massive electricity rate increase, which would have largely gone to pay for two new Toshiba-Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Miami. This victory is all the more significant, in that the State of Florida had already empowered its PUC to approve "Construction Work in Progress," charging ratepayers on their bills in advance to build new reactors, many years before any electricity is actually delivered. However, the PUC has decided to refuse such charges.  FPL responded by halting its plans to pursue the two new reactors past the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing phase. Thus, continued anti-nuclear vigilance will be required, as FPL will undoubtedly try again to force its ratepayers to bear the financial burdens and risks of building new reactors, while offering little to none of the projected profits in return. David Kraft of Nuclear Energy Information Service in Chicago asserts that this decision could well set back the nuclear power relapse nation-wide.