the blog of LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange
Nobody wants to pay to fix
Progress Energy's Crystal River nuke:
not PGN, not its new owner Duke Energy, not
Nuclear Electric Insurance Ltd. (NEIL).
So maybe this nuke, only
160 miles from here,
will be staying shut permanently?
What say we do the same for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle,
only
200 miles from here,
before they even open?
John Downey wrote for the Charlotte Business Journal, Crystal River nuke plant stymies Duke Energy Utility facing penalties, high costs for repairs,
After two mediation sessions, Progress Energy Florida and its insurer haven't agreed how much of the potential repair costs for the utility's crippled Crystal River nuclear unit are covered.
It appears all but certain that Progress — a Duke Energy Corp. subsidiary — will have to pay millions of dollars as a penalty for failing to make a timely decision on whether to repair the plant.
Repair expenses have been calculated at between $1.5 billion and $3.4 billion, plus what it costs to buy power to replace what Crystal River would have produced while it is being repaired.
What kept shut Crystal River down from 2009 on was a concrete containment separation. Maybe those errors in pouring concrete at Plant Vogtle are
Austin, Texas, had enough sense back in 1981
to try to sell out of the South Texas Nuclear
Project,
which is
currently shut down due to fire.
Even TEPCO had enough sense in 2011 to cancel proposed new reactors there,
although it took Fukushima to persuade them.
Austin went solar in 2003 and never looked back.
So can we.
Do we want to have to write off way more than the $331 million NRG did for the proposed new South Texas nukes? Especially with Southern Company's three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle that means they can charge us for it even if it's cancelled?
If you don't want an even bigger bill run up for those new nukes, now's the time to contact the PSC and the legislature.
-jsq
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