Customers pay while nuclear certainty teeters

Customers pay while nuclear certainty teeters

Beth Kassab
Business Columnist

6:12 p.m. EDT, August 4, 2011

...Hold on to your wallet: To continue pursuing their nuclear ambitions, the two electric utilities want us to pony up a combined $335 million next year — an additional $67.08 for the average Progress customer and about $25 extra on average for FPL customers.

...It's all part of Florida's gamble that nuclear energy is in our future — even as the outlook for nuclear energy grows more uncertain.

Neither Progress nor FPL have committed 100 percent to building the reactors they have set their sights on.

If they decide against them, the money we've been charged to fund the plants' design and licensing might as well have been spent trying to build an extension cord long enough to plug into the sun. Either way, we're left with years of surcharges but no new generating capacity...