Junk Plant Watts Bar: How The NRC is Pulling Their Punches

Having issues with staying up at power. I just think there are a lot of crap components in the plant that is causing this.

November 22, 2017 

SUBJECT: WATTS BAR NUCLEAR PLANT –NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000390/2017003,05000391/2017003

Unit 2 began the reporting period shutdown for repairs to the main condenser.  The unit was started up on July 23, 2017, but was shutdown to hot standby later that day due to equipment problems.  On July 25, 2017, startup resumed, but the reactor was tripped before criticality due to rod position indication problems during the startup.  Startup commenced again on July 27, 2017, but was stopped due to additional rod position indication problems.  Unit 2 started up after rod position indication repairs on July 30, 2017, and achieved 29 percent RTP on August 2, 2017.  The unit remained at that power until August 8, 2017, when the turbine was tripped due to a steam leak on a turbine drain line.  The unit stabilized at 8 percent RTP and remained there until power ascension resumed after drain line repairs.  Unit 2 reached 100 percent RTP on August 8, 2017, and remained there for the remainder of the reporting period.

Very troublesome. The not counted violation is mostly not following procedures which is very serious.  

Six violations of very low safety significance, identified by the licensee, have been reviewed by the NRC.  Corrective actions taken or planned by the licensee have been entered into the licensee’s CAP.  These violations and the corrective action tracking numbers are listed in Section 4OA7 of this report.

So basically a NRC inspector below thought his peers were too tough on TVA. Was that the geneses of the not counted violations on the above inspection. 

Non-Concurrence Process.

Integrated Report 2017003 documents a self-revealing NC\’ when licensee personnel did not properly implement a surveillance procedure (See attached 4-part writeup.)

In the analysis section, the reason be a more that minor determination was the performance deficiency caused a depressurization that had to  be stopped by operator action.” The rational used was detailed in an e-mail to me from Alan Blarney (see attached e mail); the opening of the PORV impacted plant stability (depressurization) and challenged the critical safety function of heat removal (loss of inventory). However, as stated in the analysis section “the resultant leakage from the open P0kV would not have caused the current decay heat removal method to fail (lit went undetected and leakage would be self-limiting such that it would stop before impacting the operating method of decay heat removal This statement directly contradicts the rational tor a more than minor determination that either depressurization impacted plant stability or the loss of inventory challenged the critical safety function of heat removal…

Junk Plant Watts Bar: An Official Lying Zone Going On Here

No wonder the plant is having prolonged safety culture problems with official outright lying such as this?

Watts Bar Unit 2 MSPI Effectiveness Date

https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML17345A052

Event or circumstances requiring guidance interpretation:

During March 2017, during the first operating cycle Watts Bar U2, the Condenser failed and required extensive repair to return to service.  The reactor was shut down while the work on the secondary side was performed. This resulted in a loss of 3100 critical hours.  The cause of the failure was inadequate vendor design (1970’s) of the condenser wall support structure leading to support and wall failure.  In addition, a 35-day refueling outage is planned for fourth Quarter of 2017 with an additional loss of 840 critical hours.

The cause was the QA peoples not adequately scoping out the main condenser for quality and  a design sufficient for it’s duty. It ridiculous solely depending on a components 1970s  design especially with  the magnitude of  TVA or problems during the 1970s and 1980s. They are shifting blame on 1970s guys from the Unit 2’s employees who prepared the site in around the 2015.

Think I am going to talk to the project manager…  

Junk Plant Grand Gulf At 4% after Third Scram/Trip After First Scram/ Shutdown

Update: Dec 12

Least they haven't scrammed yet. Its looking like a very slow startup. Just 19% power today. Is the slowness carefulness or is it general incompetence or poor training.

***I think this guy is setting the low bar for everyone else. This is how bad everyone can get before we step in and shut you down. These guys have been pretty degraded for the last two or three years with no hint they got control of themselves.

Everyone is just waiting for a big accident out of these guys. With all these trips, scrams, shutdowns and down powers in recent years, one wonders if this kind of despicable behavior will lead to a type of accident never seen before???

Vogtle Death Spiral

Georgia regulatory staff calls the last U.S. nuclear construction project “uneconomic”

By Steven Mufson December 5 at 2:41 PM

Southern Company said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Toshiba to speed up a $3.2 billion payment to help salvage two nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia.

Under the agreement, Toshiba will make the payments by December 15 on behalf of its nuclear construction subsidiary Westinghouse, which is in bankruptcy.

The agreement was disclosed four days after three staff members of the Georgia Public Service Commission said that the project at the Vogtle power station “is no longer economic” given huge cost overruns, construction delays and the burden that would be thrust upon ratepayers while the company profits. The PSC commissioners will decide in February whether to let the project go forward.  

Junk Plant Grand Gulf @8%

Dec 6,

One day later, still at 8%. What a absolute disgrace.

Well, I screwed up this update. It is much worst than stated. The highest reported power reached this startup is

Dec. 3 4%

4 12%

5 8%

6 0% 

Millstone and Seabrook Are Walking Dead Man

Could all the state regulators and NEISO be corrupt? Absolutely. This is Matt Lauer with the NE grid. Everyone knows the grid is astonishing corrupt for years.

Vermonters join suit over alleged electricity price-fixing

Power lines in Monkton.

VTDigger file photo

Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2017 8:39 pm

By Mike Polhamus, VTDigger

MONTPELIER — Two Vermont residents are among a dozen plaintiffs suing on behalf of 7 million New Englanders who allegedly paid billions extra for electricity as the result of price-fixing by two of the region's largest energy companies, Avangrid and Eversource.

Montpelier resident John Odum and South Royalton's David Leighton, along with their fellow plaintiffs, claim the companies artificially constrained New England's natural gas supply in order to drive up wholesale electric prices.

As a result, the suit states, New England electricity customers paid $3.6 billion more for power between 2013 and 2016 than they would have otherwise.

Electricity prices during those years were about 20 percent higher than they should have been, according to the suit.

"Not since Enron's greedy heyday during the California energy crisis, nearly two decades ago, have American energy markets been manipulated for private profit at such expense to everyday electricity consumers," the suit states.

Odum referred questions to the attorney behind the case, Thomas Sobol, of the firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sobol did not immediately return a call for comment. Odum, who is the Montpelier city clerk, is participating in the suit as a private individual.

The suit comes on the heels of a study that found Avangrid and Eversource reserving large volumes of natural gas pipeline capacity every day during important times of the year, then canceling the sales at the last minute. These purchases occurred on a pipeline critical to New England's wholesale natural gas markets called the Algonquin Pipeline, the study states.

In addition to raising prices, market manipulation also may be falsely bolstering arguments for more pipeline construction in the region, according to one author of the study.

By buying up so much of the Algonquin Pipeline's capacity, the two energy giants blocked gas purchases by other New England energy companies, the suit alleges. This artificial shortage drove up the cost of electricity, as most of New England's generation comes from natural gas-fired plants.

Gaming the market

Avangrid and Eversource, as electricity wholesalers, could profit off their high-priced electricity to a greater degree than was possible through natural gas sales, the study found. Unlike the natural gas distribution market, the New England wholesale electricity market doesn't cap utilities' return at a percentage of the value of their capital.

The potential for manipulation exists in certain cases where companies have multiple roles: selling natural gas, buying natural gas for the electricity generation market, and selling electricity.

Such companies may be able to game a regulated market to realize otherwise impossible profits off an unregulated market, said Charles Mason, a co-author of the study and a professor of petroleum and natural gas economics at the University of Wyoming.

The Canadian company Gaz Metro is another that operates in both gas and electricity markets, as the owner of Vermont Gas Systems and the state's largest electric utility, Green Mountain Power. GMP owns a number of electricity generators, including hydroelectric dams, wind turbines and solar arrays.

But it would be "impossible" for Gaz Metro to profit off the same type of market behavior that the lawsuit alleges, said GMP spokeswoman Kristin Carlson.

Unlike with Avangrid and Eversource, which sold wholesale electricity on a largely unregulated market, in Gaz Metro's case Green Mountain Power is a regulated utility subject to the same rate-of-return limits as Vermont Gas.

However, one of the study's authors suggested that a parent company of Gaz Metro knew of the alleged manipulation of the natural gas supply but did nothing to stop it.

The owner of the Algonquin Pipeline is a Houston company called Enbridge, which owns 40 percent of Gaz Metro.

Enbridge undoubtedly knew what was occurring with the daily pipeline capacity purchases that were withdrawn at the last minute, according to the study.

But Enbridge chose to look the other way, the study claims, because the company could use the artificial supply constraints to argue for building more pipelines. Enbridge has proposed a project called the Access Northeast pipeline in partnership with Eversource Energy.

"It is a near certainty the pipeline operator is aware of the scheduling practices on its pipelines that result in underutilized capacity," the study states. However, it says, pipeline companies make more money selling pipeline contracts than they do from ensuring those contracts actually fill their pipelines with gas. That means "their incentives lead them to favor constructing new pipeline capacity — to sell more contracts — rather than ensuring existing capacity is fully utilized," the study says.

"In New England, this incentive took the concrete form of the proposed Access Northeast pipeline expansion project " the study states.

Mason said that while the pipeline operator must have known about the companies' alleged behavior, he's not convinced Enbridge sanctioned it in order to push forward another pipeline project. Mason said that assertion was made by another of the study's authors.

Enbridge is not the only one calling for more New England natural gas pipelines.

Pipeline push

Among the more influential proponents of expanded New England natural gas pipeline capacity is Gordon van Welie, who runs the organization that operates the region's electrical grid, ISO-New England. Van Welie has said repeatedly in recent years that the region is threatened by a shortage of natural gas pipelines.

Mason's study and the lawsuit that followed it haven't changed van Welie's or ISO-New England's positions on the subject, according to a spokesperson for the grid operator.

Neither van Welie nor ISO-NE has the data to evaluate the validity of the suit's claims, media relations specialist Marcia Blomberg wrote in an email. Blomberg also said ISO-New England has no opinion on the suit and that its claims are outside her organization's jurisdiction.

"That said," Blomberg wrote, "ISO New England's concerns about the reliability impacts of natural gas infrastructure constraints have not changed.

"The challenges of maintaining reliability on a power system that is increasingly dependent on natural-gas-fired generators have been apparent in New England since a January 2004 cold snap, and those operating challenges have only intensified since then. The use of natural gas for power generation continues to increase, but the capacity of the region's natural gas infrastructure has not been expanded at the same pace and it is not always adequate to deliver all the fuel needed for both heating and power generation during winter."

For its part, Eversource said the lawsuit spurred by Mason's study is groundless.

"We are aware of the lawsuit and are reviewing it," said Al Lara, a media relations officer with Eversource. "However, the facts remain unchanged: The allegations underlying this lawsuit are untrue and baseless. The expenditure of resources to further these false claims is regrettable for all parties involved."

Avangrid representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Green Mountain Power is watching the case closely, Carlson said.

If the widespread overpricing the suit alleges turns out to be true, Carlson said, and if GMP recovers any money its customers were overcharged, all of it will go back to the utility's ratepayers.

Representatives at the Public Utility Commission and the Department of Public Service weren't able to say immediately whether their agencies might take action of their own against Avangrid or Eversource.

The chief of Attorney General T.J. Donovan's Public Protection Division, Christopher Curtis, said his office doesn't as a rule comment on investigations the AG's office may or may not be doing. Curtis did say Donovan's office is reviewing the study, and monitoring the lawsuit.

Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday that he's "not familiar with" the matter. But he added that "obviously the cost of electricity is of great interest to me.

Headwinds At Hope Creek and Salem

You can't tell me this facility isn't facing destructive budget...

Is Showdown in Offing over Nuclear Subsidies in New Jersey?

Tom Johnson | November 30, 2017

Foes worry that those in favor of scheme will try to push a bill through in lame-duck session

In what is likely to be the opening salvo of a nasty legislative battle, lawmakers will convene early next week to discuss how to prevent the state’s nuclear plants from shutting down prematurely.

The bigger and unanswered question is whether they also are planning to act on a yet-to-be-introduced bill that some say could provide up to billions of dollars in ratepayer subsidies to the Public Service Enterprise Group over the next decade.

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee and Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee plan to hold a rare joint session Monday on economic challenges facing nuclear power plants, an issue that is splintering the energy sector not only here but in Washington D.C. and elsewhere.

News of the joint hearing yesterday jolted a coalition opposed to efforts to prop up nuclear units. They fear the proceedings may foreshadow a legislative initiative to award lucrative financial incentives to PSEG and Exelon, (a co-owner of two of the plants) during the lame-duck session, which ends early in January.

“We’ve seen this special-interest strategy before on bad bills,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, an opponent of subsidies to nuclear plants. “It’s how a bad bill gets passed in a lame-duck session.’’

Addressing subsidies

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo (D-Mercer), the chairman of the Assembly committee, however, discounted that scenario, at least for now. “At this point in time, I don’t have a bill,’’ he said, although conceding the issue of subsidies would likely be addressed during the hearing.

Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the chairman of the Senate panel, did not return a call seeking comment. In the past he has been guarded about the subject, saying only the issue is being studied.

A quick fix is still possible, if the political will is there. After today’s session, the Legislature only has seven scheduled days in the current term. Foes, however, say the issue is too important to be tackled in a lame-duck session, although it would not be the first time for it to happen.

“I haven’t seen a bill of this magnitude go through this quickly in this kind of time period,’’ said James Benton, the longtime executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council. “There’s a lot of information that we don’t have at this point.’’…

Junk Grand Gulf: Wide Spead Nuclear Instrumentation Troubles Upon Startup

This constitutes extreme negligence and malicious unprofessionalism...

The whole pattern of plant operations in the last few years constitutes extreme unprofessionalism. Why can't we do something about these dangerous guys?

They are going to wreck the whole industry.

Then two different nuclear instrumentation broke for separate reasons. Unbelievable. What about the signoff checks before startup that failed to detect these. These guys weren't prepared for startup.

We need a special inspection for this or higher...

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53090
Facility: GRAND GULF Region: 4 State: MS Unit: [1] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [1] GE-6 NRC Notified By: DAVID BURRUS HQ OPS Officer: DAN LIVERMORE	Notification Date: 11/25/2017 Notification Time: 06:02 [ET] Event Date: 11/25/2017 Event Time: 02:38 [CST] Last Update Date: 11/26/2017
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL	Person (Organization): MICHAEL HAY (R4DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
1	M/R	Y	0	Startup	0	Hot Shutdown

Event Text

MANUAL REACTOR SCRAM DURING STARTUP "At 0238 [CST] a manual reactor scram was inserted by placing the Reactor Mode Switch in Shutdown. At 0149 [CST], with reactor power just above the point of adding heat, IRM [Intermediate Range Monitor] channels A, C, and D received a spurious upscale trip signal which immediately cleared. Upon investigation, operability of RPS [Reactor Protection System] scram function for Intermediate Range Detectors was placed in question. This event is being reported under 10CFR 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B), as any event or condition that results in actuation of the Reactor Protection System (RPS), when the reactor is critical." The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector. * * * UPDATE ON NOVEMBER 26, 2017, AT 1850 FROM GRAND GULF TO MICHAEL BLOODGOOD * * * "At 0238 [CST] a manual reactor scram was inserted by placing the Reactor Mode Switch in Shutdown. At 0149 [CST], with reactor power just above the point of adding heat, Intermediate Range Monitor neutron flux detector (IRM) channels A, C, and D received a spurious Upscale Trip signal which immediately cleared. Upon investigation, IRM channels A, C, and D were declared Inoperable. IRM G was already Inoperable for another reason. RPS scram function from IRM channels B, E, F, and H was always Operable and available. That event is being reported under 10CFR 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B), as any event or condition that results in actuation of the Reactor Protection System (RPS), when the reactor is critical. "This Revised Statement to Event Notification # 53090 is being made to make it clear that only four IRM channels (A, C, D, G) were Inoperable and that the IRM RPS SCRAM function was still available from the four remaining Operable IRM channels (B, E, F, and H)." The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector. Notified R4DO (O'Keefe)

Sunk Argentine Submarine

So it the battery. Operating a 34 year old submarine is maliciously negligent...  

President Mauricio Macri has ordered an inquiry to “know the truth” about what happened to Argentina’s missing submarine, the San Juan, which disappeared with the loss of its 44 crew.
The 34-year-old submarine had gone through a refit and was “in perfect condition”, Macri told reporters at the Argentine navy headquarters.
“My commitment is with the truth,” he said, adding the tragedy “will require a serious, in-depth investigation that will yield certainty about what has happened”.
Argentina’s navy has been fiercely criticised for its handling of the operation since first reporting the submarine overdue at its Mar del Plata base on November 16.
The navy took several days to say that the San Juan had reported a problem with its batteries in its final communication on November 15.
Only on Thursday did the navy confirm there had been an explosion on board, which experts said was likely linked to the battery problem.
“Until we have the complete information, we do not have to look for the guilty, to look for those responsible. First we have to have certainty of what happened and why it happened,” said Macri.

***Bet you it was a big short on the main battery and creating much fire and smoke. 

Then the fire cooked off a torpedo.

Bet you the USA has the whole ocean instrumented up for sound…

Cooper's Interesting Safety Relief Valve LER

Update

The next LER had only one set pressure lift inaccuracy. These guys in the past had the majority of SRV setpoint failures every testing cycle. This is a huge win!!!  

I am surprised I missed this one considering my interest in SRVs. The brand new excuse here industry wide is they machine the disc and set. They reassemble the value not allowing the corrosion to build up on them both. It seems they are thinking if they let the oxide layer to age and build up before assembly, they would have no more problems. 

Licensee Event Report No. 2015-001-01 Cooper Nuclear Station, Docket No. 50-298, DPR-46

Corrosion bonding occurs when the protective oxide layers of the seat and disc break down and allow a crevice corrosion process to develop between the seat and disc. The seat is machined and then lapped with the disc to create a tight fit with one another. During the material removal process (machining) on both the seat and disc, the protective oxide layer that provides corrosion protection is removed. Because the SRV pilot valves are then assembled, the oxide layer is not given sufficient time to reestablish itself naturally, and no external process, such as pickling, is done to ensure that the oxide layer is reestablished to its full extent without any breaks or discontinuities. When the SRV pilot valves are assembled, the seat and disc are jammed together and air cannot reach the surfaces, therefore the full benefits of the oxide layer of the anti-corrosion material is diminished.

Troubled Columbia Licensed Supervisor Found Drunk at Work

Power Reactor Event Number: 53068 Facility: COLUMBIA GENERATING STATION Region: 4 State: WA Unit: [2] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [2] GE-5 NRC Notified By: BRUCE HUGO HQ OPS Officer: JEFF HERRERA Notification Date: 11/13/2017 Notification Time: 17:26 [ET] Event Date: 11/13/2017 Event Time: 08:02 [PST] Last Update Date: 11/13/2017 Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 26.719 - FITNESS FOR DUTY Person (Organization): MARK HAIRE (R4DO) FFD GROUP (EMAI) Unit SCRAM Code RX CRIT Initial PWR Initial RX Mode Current PWR Current RX Mode 2 N Y 100 Power Operation 100 Power Operation Event Text FITNESS FOR DUTY - POSITIVE RESULT FOR ALCOHOL "A licensed supervisor had a confirmed positive test for alcohol. The employee was escorted offsite and their plant access has been terminated and a five year denial placed in Personnel Access Data System (PADS). "This is being reported per 10 CFR 26.719(b)(2)(ii). "The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified."

What The Hell, Junk Plant Grand Gulf Down to 90%

???

preoperational testing and first years capacity factor? z

The Extreme Consevative Teaparty has Turned Against Vogtle

Augusta Chronicle: Stop rewarding failure: Protect consumers, not profits

More than a decade ago, our nation decided to pursue more nuclear power generation. Two reactors were to be built here in Georgia at Plant Vogtle in Burke County and dozens more across the country. We supported that effort and those investments for a number of reasons. 

But what we did not support was providing corporate welfare to big power companies and unfairly picking winners and losers for our energy future. This combination has put all the project’s risks on the backs of electric customers – Georgia’s families and businesses – instead of on Southern Co.’s shareholders.

The Georgia General Assembly made a terrible mistake in 2009 when they passed Senate Bill 31, the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act. This established a tax that Georgia Power’s customers – mainly small businesses, residential users and municipalities – had to pay every month in advance of any electricity being produced to cover the Vogtle project’s financing costs, including Company profits. Since 2011 more than $2 billion has been collected.

The federal government offered many corporate handouts too, at the expense of taxpayers, to make this project work. This included more than $8 billion in loan guarantees – 16 times more than the federal loans provided to Solyndra, which was a failure and cost taxpayers dearly. And guess what: The Vogtle owners want $3.7 billion more in federal bailouts. 

These state and federal policies unfairly picked winners and losers. The marketplace was never given a chance to decide what energy choices were actually competitive. Without having to compete, new nuclear power was handed a victory here in Georgia over options such as wind and solar that now are proven winners in free markets.

New nuclear is a proven loser – so much so that no other reactors are being built here in the U.S. and nearly all those proposed have been cancelled. 

The new Vogtle reactors should have been operating by now but are delayed until 2022, if not later. And the costs, due to combination of factors including mismanagement, years of delays, and the bankruptcy of designer and builder Westinghouse, have now doubled to at least $25 billion. And there is no guarantee that is the final price tag or that they will ever operate. To add insult to injury, Georgia Power is making a profit off the construction cost overages. 

And to make matters even worse, there is not even a viable long-term plan in place for disposing of spent fuel from the existing reactors, let alone future waste.
Why continue rewarding failure? 

Georgia Power has now put the Georgia Public Service Commission, with five elected commissioners, in a corner – demanding they grant everything the company wants: higher costs, guaranteed profits and no risks to their shareholders or partners. If the commissioners don’t agree, the company says they’ll cancel the project. Georgia Power wants assurance that customers will pay for multibillion-dollar mistakes.

After years of granting Georgia Power many billions in pre-approved costs at the expense of customers as the project was going off-track, the Commissioners now need to stand firm: stop bailing out irresponsibility. It’s Georgia Power’s and their partners’ decision on whether to continue with Vogtle or not – the PSC just needs to make sure it’s not done at the expense of Georgia ratepayers. 

And the Georgia General Assembly needs to own up to their costly mistake of encouraging corporate welfare and repeal SB31 to prevent any future financial meltdowns. 

The bungled Vogtle expansion transcends political ideology. If the General Assembly and the Georgia Public Service Commissioners don’t stand up to these greedy corporate interests, Georgians need to hold them accountable in next year’s 2018 elections.

Ms. Dooley is a lifelong Republican activist and one of the national founders of the Tea Party movement. She serves as president of the Green Tea Coalition and Conservatives for Energy Freedom.
Mr. Staples is an IT instructor specializing in teaching security and project management courses across the country. He ran as a Libertarian for the Georgia Public Service Commission in 2012, and was a co-founder of the nonpartisan Green Tea Coalition.

Huge Political and Public Service Commission Realignment Coming to Georgia

Based on the South Carolinas Experience. This whole thing challenges the extremist conservative Southern ideology.   

The speaker was involved with this and backed them. Now he is backpedaling fighting for his political life. The Georgia politicians are now planning for the same thing. This thing was always to large and the largest utilities never had horsepower to control the build and pockets deep enough to fund to completion. The only big enough to do it was the US government. It should have been a government program. But all conservative ideology is locale based and they hate big government. 

The SC speaker is saying the construction in progress legislation was the fault of the debacle. So the South Carolina legislators are going to bar a plant being put on rate base before completion. Georgia has the same laws as SC. The GA PSC is going to take a beating if they continue to allow construction is progress rules. If the SC political system says the Summer failure was the result of the construction works in progress, how can Georgia continue to justify their laws.          

saying they would “gut existing laws” that allowed utilities to charge customers before the reactors were complete, and help avoid another expensive construction failure.

  
The Georgia Power ultimatum. The Vogtle new build is bleed ing out and there is nothing anyone can do. The only thing they can do is to delay the death of the program. The longer the death takes, the larger the consequences will be to the political system.  

Kurt Ebersbach, senior attorney: “We’re concerned that this request amounts to a blank check. If you read their filing carefully, they really don’t make any bones about it. They are saying, ‘Commission, you must approve this revised cost estimate, tell us it is reasonable or we will not go forward.’ That if there is any hint they may not be able to recover all of it down the road, then they will not go forward. The project co-owners will not go forward.”

House Speaker: Change laws after nuclear plant failure  

The South Carolina House speaker is proposing six new laws after the abandonment of two nuclear reactors in the state

Associated Press

4:27 PM

Nov 10, 2017

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina House speaker is proposing six laws aimed at protecting consumers from the consequences of a failed project to build two nuclear reactors.
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. and the state-owned utility Santee Cooper have sought to insulate themselves from the hemorrhaging costs of their ill-fated joint venture at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, which they abandoned on July 31 after Westinghouse Electric, the Cranberry-based chief contractor, declared bankruptcy. The utilities had already spent more than $9 billion by then, collecting nearly $2 billion in interest from ratepayers along the way.
House Speaker Jay Lucas of Hartsville announced his proposals on Thursday, saying they would “gut existing laws” that allowed utilities to charge customers before the reactors were complete, and help avoid another expensive construction failure.

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“The legislation introduced today lowers current rates and prevents consumers from paying a single penny more for the costly failed project,” the Republican’s statement said.
Mr. Lucas’ legislation would cut SCE&G customer rates by 18 percent, the amount they’re currently paying for the project. A typical residential customer would save about $27 per month. The hit to SCE&G would total about $37 million per month, or nearly $450 million per year.
Another proposal would allow refunds of what customers have already paid, if regulators conclude there had been “poor management” by SCE&G. Still another would prevent Santee Cooper from collecting money to reimburse itself the costs of ending the project.
Currently, Santee Cooper is not subject to Public Service Commission oversight.

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The proposed legislation would change that, and shake up its management structure as well, removing Santee Cooper’s board of directors, the Public Service Commissioners and even the panel that that interviews prospective members of the regulatory panel. Their replacements would be required to pass rigorous qualifications.
Mr. Lucas also would give the Office of Regulatory staff, a state watchdog agency, more power.
Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said the utility is reviewing the proposals. SCE&G had no immediate comment, but previously dismissed such ideas as “radical and disruptive.”
Incoming CEO Jimmy Addison of SCANA, SCE&G’s parent company, said making the utility pay its share of the project would scare off investors and lenders, making it harder to finance day-to-day operations, including purchasing fuel, hiring contractors for repairs and paying employees.
Already, SCANA stock has dropped 25 percent, reducing the company’s market capitalization to $6.3 billion, since the project was abandoned.