Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumLast remaining nuclear project in U.S. may be canceled by the end of the year
The future of Westinghouse Electric Co.s AP1000 plant, the fate of the U.S. nuclear industry, and the trajectory of the bankrupt Cranberry-based nuclear firm might come down to whats good for Georgia electricity customers.
Its a question that must be weighed by that states public service commission this week. The commissions opinion will determine if the remaining nuclear power plant construction project in the country two AP1000 units at Plant Vogtle will meet its premature end, possibly in the next few weeks.
Its not a direct cancellation vote. The commission, which began hearings Monday, must determine if the costs incurred in the first six months of this year by Georgia Power, a 45 percent owner of the project, are reasonable to recover from electric customers, and if future costs would be as well.
The commissions staff doesnt think all of the costs are. In fact, staff members think its time that the shareholders of Georgia Powers parent company, Southern Co., feel some of the pain for Southerns poor oversight of the Vogtle project, whose price tag ballooned from $14 billion to $27 billion while Westinghouse was in charge of construction.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies/2017/12/11/nuclear-Westinghouse-Georgia-Vogtle-plant-power-South-Carolina/stories/201712110012
Cross-posted in the Georgia Group.
elleng
(130,974 posts)feel some of the pain for Southerns poor oversight.'
NNadir
(33,525 posts)Every nuclear power plant that is either shut or canceled is a decision to kill people, since nuclear power plants save lives.
The problem with building a nuclear power plant in the United States - the nation that built over 100 of them in approximately 20 years - is that all plants, because of appeals to ignorance by people who hate both scientists and engineers, has now become an exercise in FOAKE, first of a kind engineering.
It is also a function of the fact that the "safety" criteria set for nuclear energy is higher than any other form of energy. Only nuclear energy is required to "prove" that it will never kill anyone anywhere at anytime for tens of thousands of years into the future.
This is ignorance reified, since every other form significant energy kills people at a vastly higher rate.
I never tire of saying this, because it is true and because it obviates the ignorance of some very questionable weak minds, but seven million people die each year from air pollution alone. This means that in the 5 minutes it took to write this post, more than 65 human beings had their lives end because we just don't give a shit.
More people died in Japan from the explosion of the Mitsubishi chlorosilane plant which served the solar industry - a trivial and useless form of energy that doesn't even produce 2 of the 570 exajoules humanity consumes each year - than died from radiation at Fukushima.
Mitsubishi Plant Explosion, 2014
Guess which event gets the most press?
The decision to not build a nuclear power plant is a crime against all future generations.
hunter
(38,317 posts)And Brawndo, it's got ELECTROLYTES!
NNadir
(33,525 posts)It feels like some of the conversations I have around here.
Where's it from?