Category Archives: CWIP

Southern Company missed earnings on Kemper Coal but Plant Vogtle is dominant

The dominant financial consideration is “what’s going to happen with Georgia”, meaning with nuclear Plant Vogtle, said SO CEO Tom Fanning, referring to the GA PSC CWIP monitoring hearings currently in progress. Meanwhile, that $160 million estimate 2 July 2013 of more Kemper Coal cost overruns by 30 July turned into $278 million after taxes (AP). This is on top of $333 million after taxes in May. SO earnings fell 52% (WSJ), missing projections, and SO stock dropped 2% yesterday.

Remember GA PSC Tim Echols already suggested a Plant Vogtle cost overrun cap similar to the one Mississippi PSC applied to Kemper Coal that caused SO to have to eat all those costs. If that happens, SO’s got financial problems.

Has SO seen the solar light yet, as in reliable, dependable, and deployable on time and on budget? Nope. Solar was tacked onto the end of Tom Fanning’s summary of interesting stuff in the 31 July 2013 earnings call: Continue reading →

GA PSC member ties Plant Vogtle nuke cost overruns to Kemper Coal in Mississippi

If Georgia Power stonewalls on cost overruns, will it lose at least one Commissioner this time? Long-time nuclear supporter Tim Echols suggested at the hearings this morning that cost overruns at nuclear Plant Vogtle should be capped like Southern Company was forced to do for Kemper Coal by the Mississippi PSC. Standard & Poor’s already downgraded SO because of Kemper Coal and two analysts have downgraded SO for sticking to coal and nukes instead of doing more solar and wind. If SO’s majority part Georgia Power loses the GA PSC, it could be curtains for Plant Vogtle’s new nukes.

Ray Henry wrote for AP this morning, Southern Co. challenged on nuclear plant costs,

Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power has asked to raise the budget for its share of massive project by $737 million to roughly $6.85 billion.

Public Service Commission Tim Echols asked whether the firm has considered offering a deal like one it reached in Mississippi over a separate plant that also proved expensive to build. The company has absorbed $540 million in losses in Mississippi and could face more.

Remember, Tim Echols has for two years now been Continue reading →

GA PSC hearings on Plant Vogtle CWIP monitoring

Will GA PSC yet again approve passing cost overruns for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle on to Georgia Power customers? Hearings started today about that. You can listen, and you can testify, today or in August or September, or in writing.

GA PSC PR 15 July 2013,


Contact: Bil Edge
Phone 404-656-2316
www.psc.state.ga.us 		Georgia Public Service Commission

244 Washington St S.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Phone: 404-656-4501
Toll free:1- 800-282-5813
Fax: 404-656-2341
For Immediate Release
 MEDIA ADVISORY 7-13

PSC to Begin Hearings on Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear Construction Project Monitoring

Atlanta, July 15, 2013 – The Georgia Public Service Commission (Commission) will begin its first set of hearings on July 18, 2013 at 10 a.m. on the Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear Construction Projection Monitoring, Docket 29849. The hearing will take place in Room 110 at the Commission offices at 244 Washington Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30334.The hearing will continue, if necessary, at 10 a.m. on Friday July 19, 2013. Additional hearings are scheduled for August 13-14, 2013 and September 12, 2013.

The Commission will begin by receiving the testimony of any public witnesses pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 46-2-59(g). Immediately following public witnesses, the Commission will hear applications to intervene and any objections thereto, and any motions concerning the utilities pre-filed testimony and other appropriate motions. Following these preliminary matters, the Commission will conduct hearings on the direct case of Georgia Power.

The schedule in this docket is as follows: Continue reading →

Why are you gambling on nuclear instead of solar? –Gloria Tatum @ SO 2013-05-22

Why is SO gambling our health and dollars on Plant Vogtle when Georgia Power could be getting on with solar power? SO CEO Tom Fanning avoided the first part of Gloria Tatum’s question by simply denying it, and danced around the second part by saying the rate hike for Plant Vogtle’s cost overruns would only be 6 to 8 percent, not 12 percent. Do you want to pay 6 or 8 percent more for a radioactive white elephant when you could be getting power from the sun for less?

The floor person at the 22 May 2013 Southern Company Stockholder Meeting introduced Gloria Tatum with 164 shares, representing Nuclear Watch South, and the SO CEO insisted

TF: Call me Tom. Gee whiz.

Gloria Tatum GT: Tom. Hi,Tom. It’s great to be here on this beautiful day.

TF: Thank you. Yes ma’am.

GT: And I know Southern Company’s done many wonderful things, but I want to point out a few things to you today.

First, you know, after the Fukushima meltdown, TEPCO’s $50 billion nuclear complex became a worthless liability. The deadly radiation still circles the planet, polluting the earth and increasing cancer. Other countries have abandoned their nuclear and they’re looking to renewable, but Southern Company’s affiliate, Georgia Power, continues construction on two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. Now Shell Bluff is a community down the stream from Plant Vogtle and it has experienced a 25 percent increase in cancer since Vogtle 1 and 2 have been built.

Another problem with Vogtle Continue reading →

Kemper Coal cost overruns at Southern Company Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2013-05-22

SO CEO Tom Fanning used Julia O’Neal’s question about cost overruns to tout the alleged benefits of Kemper Coal, which include selling CO2 to oil companies to pump into the ground to produce more oil. He didn’t mention that oil is then burned to produce more CO2. Can you justify the Kemper Plant on your metrics? --Julia O Neal And that Mississippi lignite coal he said would otherwise stay in the ground? Yes it and its CO2 would stay there if SO would get on with solar instead of coal.

Before her question, he had not said much about that project, mostly this about Major Projects, at 29 minutes and 28 seconds in SO’s own video of the 22 May 2013 Southern Company Stockholder meeting. You’ll have to skip there manually, because of the SO’s video format. SO prohibited “unauthorized” videoing, so we don’t have the usual LAKE video on YouTube.

I always call out Vogtle and Kemper County. Both projects are going to serve our customers for decades to come. We’ve had some challenges with Kemper. We’ll probably talk about those later. But when I think about the value that these projects will bring, I think our customers, and the economy of the southeast, will be benefited for decades. And we’re very excited about the progress we’re making on both of those.

It’s curious he mentioned SO’s flagship coal and nuclear projects without saying coal or nuclear. And if by “progress” he means Continue reading →

Profits also link Vogtle nukes and Kemper coal

Southern Company gets substantial profits from utility customers paying in advance for “clean coal” in Kemper County, MS and for new nukes at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River in Georgia. As long as SO can keep raking in those profits, it has incentive not to get on with distributed solar power.

Kristi E. Swartz wrote for the AJC 27 July 2011, Southern Co.’s profits up on nuke finance fees,

A fee added to Georgia Power bills to help finance a planned nuclear plant expansion also helped parent Southern Co. post an 18 percent profit gain in the second quarter.

The $3.73 monthly fee offsets financing costs for two proposed nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.

Atlanta-based Southern cited it as one of the factors lifting net income to $603.3 million, or 71 cents a share, in the April-June quarter compared with $510.2 million, or 62 cents a share a year earlier. Profits were also helped by a hot early summer, the company said.

Back then SO CEO Tom Fanning said,

“The whole issue is to preserve schedule and costs,” Fanning said.
Continue reading →

Bloomberg links MS Kemper Coal cost overruns to GA Plant Vogtle nukes

Betty Liu of Bloomberg quizzes Thomas A. Fanning of Southern Company Bloomberg has video of Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning trying to explain away how cost overruns at SO’s nuclear Plant Vogtle in Georgia are linked to cost overruns SO’s coal Plant Kemper in Mississippi.

Betty Liu: This project along with the Vogtle project… has some investors wondering maybe Southern Company has stretched itself too thin, with these two major projects you’ve got under way….

Fanning: In fact, the Vogtle project is going beautifully. We have delayed the in-service date by a year, but….

That’s funny, GA PSC and the AJC say Continue reading →

Poor Southern Company: losing money on Kemper Coal in Mississippi

Apparently $1.88 billion wasn’t enough for Southern Company to charge the ratepayers of Mississippi Power enough for their “clean coal” plant. “Escalating costs”: kind of like SO’s new nukes at Plant Vogtle? Southern Company CEO Fanning says “I know people will try and link those, but they are not at all even similar.” What do you think?

Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC 24 April 2103, Miss. power plant costs hurt Southern Co. profit,

Continue reading →

Renewable Portfolio Standards: GA, NC, and ALEC

Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS) are being proposed in Georgia and ALEC is trying to do away with them in North Carolina. If ALEC doesn’t like them, there must be something good about RPS. Let’s get on with real renewable energy in Georgia.

In Georgia, HB 503, sponsored by Karla Drenner, Carol Fullerton, Debbie Buckner, Scott Holcomb, Spencer Frye, and Earnest Smith, would create a Renewable Energy Credits Trading program as part of renewable portfolio standards, as Kyle wrote for Spencer Frye’s blog 10 March 2013, Let the Sunshine In. Unfortunately, HB 503 includes biomass as a renewable energy source. Maybe they just mean landfill gas, which I consider a special case since it’s being produced anyway, and since methane is worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2, burning landfill gas makes some sense. Nope, in the actual bill, 46-3-71 (1):

‘Biomass material’ means organic matter, excluding fossil fuels and black liquor, including agricultural crops, plants, trees, wood, wood wastes and residues, sawmill waste, sawdust, wood chips, bark chips, and forest thinning, harvesting, or clearing residues; wood waste from pallets or other wood demolition debris; peanut shells; cotton plants; corn stalks; and plant matter, including aquatic plants, grasses, stalks, vegetation, and residues, including hulls, shells, or cellulose containing fibers

The barn door in there is “harvesting”, which can mean whole trees, but the rest isn’t much better. We don’t need to be burning things that increase atmospheric CO2 and end up stripping our forests. In North Carolina they staretd with just tops and limbs and then tried to escalate to whole trees. We already fought off the biomass boondoggle here in south Georgia; let’s not have it encouraged statewide. Especially when we have better solutions: solar and wind power. HB 503 isn’t going to get passed this year, since it didn’t make crossover day, so maybe its sponsors can clean up that biomass mess before they submit it again.

Speaking of North Carolina, Continue reading →

$1.88 billion and more on Kemper Coal to be charged to Mississippi Power customers

Risks at Southern Company’s Kemper Coal plant in Mississippi? Push those costs onto the public, of course! Southern Company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power got the MS Public Service Commissioners to approve super-CWIP (Construction Work in Progress) for Kemper Coal: automatic rate increases for MS Power customers for years. Just like Southern Company and its biggest subsidiary Georgia Power got the Georgia legislature to approve Super-CWIP for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle back in 2009. And both CWIP projects are already over budget. How about we cancel those boondoggles and build solar and wind instead?

AP reported 13 December 2012, After spending $1.88 billion, Southern Co. still faces risks on plant in Kemper County,

Continue reading →