We don’t know

the federal cost estimates or the

terms and conditions
or why Plant Vogtle just got another three month extension
on that $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee.

Rob Pavey wrote for the August Chronicle yesterday,

Federal loan guarantee offer for Vogtle expansion extended again,

The owners of Plant Vogtle have secured — for the third time
— an extension to allow further negotiation with the U.S.
Energy Department over its 2010 offer of up to $8.3 billion in
federal loan guarantees to help finance two new nuclear reactors.

Georgia Power and co-owners Oglethorpe Power and Municipal Electric
Authority of Georgia were conditionally approved in February 2010
for loan-guarantee financing, in which the government promises to
assume a company’s debt if the company defaults. However, the
details were never agreed on. Two extensions have since expired,
with the most recent deadline — June 30 — passing
without any formal agreement in place. Jeannice M.W. Hall, a
Southern Co. spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Wednesday that the new
extension sets a Sept. 30 deadline for completing the loan guarantee
arrangements.

With Southern Company’s stock already

downgraded because of Kemper Coal and Plant Vogtle,
after

S&P’s downgraded SO’s credit,
and with

still more cost overruns at Kemper
on top of

Vogtle being 19 months late and a billion dollars over budget,
as
Gloria Tatum asked back in May,
why is SO gambling on nuclear instead of solar?

If you’re tired of this, you can

ask DoE Secretary Ernest Moniz to revoke that loan.

-jsq