Tag Archives: Duke Energy

Duke and Progress to buy Santee-Cooper’s Summer nuke?

I erred in saying Duke owns nuclear Summer Station in North Carolina: it’s actually owned by SCANA and Santee Cooper. But I wasn’t as wrong as I thought. It looks like somebody’s been pressuring Duke and Progress, the two utilities currently maybe merging, to buy Summer.

John D. Runkle, attorney for NC WARN, hand-delivered a letter to Robert Gruber Executive Director Public Staff of the NC Utilities Commission on 18 June 2012, Re: INVESTIGATION — Duke-Progress Merger

In preparing comments on the Duke-Progress merger on behalf of the NC Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN), we came across several reports that South Carolina officials, including the South Carolina Public Service Commission, were pressuring the utilities to purchase the State-owned Santee Cooper’s shares of the V.C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station.

Santee Cooper owns one-third of the present reactor and 45% of the proposed units 2 and 3. Based on the recent cost estimate of $9.8 billion, buying Santee Cooper’s share would add about $4.5 billion to the cost of the merger. But those are low-ball estimates; other nuclear units in the Southeast are projected to cost roughly twice as much. Realistically, purchasing Santee Cooper’s share would likely add much more to the cost of the merger.

We were unable to find any filings in either the South Carolina or North Carolina dockets regarding the V.C. Summer Station. If a purchase of nuclear units in South Carolina has been made a condition to the merger, it should be part of the public record, and not as some backroom negotiation.

I’d like to see that.

Even more I’d like to see this:

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Just say no to biomass –VDT to VLCIA

VDT reported on

Biomass plant misses deadlines,
but what do they really think?
The title is my paraphrase of Sunday’s editorial title,

It’s all up to the Industrial Authority:



In two months, less than 60 days away, Wiregrass Power LLC is supposed to
break ground on the biomass facility in Lowndes County. By now, they are
supposed to have contracts with power companies to sell the electricity
to and with suppliers to purchase the wood waste. They have neither,
nor does the company have an agreement with the city of Valdosta to
purchase the wastewater from the sewage treatment plant.

Well, the City of Valdosta could

refuse to sell the wastewater.
And maybe the Lowndes County Commission could exercise its

fiduciary responsibility.
But, sure, the Industrial Authority could just say no.


And yet the folks at the Industrial Authority appear to be rather
nonchalant about the fact that this company has yet again broken its
agreement. They have the power to renogiate the terms of the agreement and
they also have the power to cancel it, but neither is happening. Instead,
they are giving the company all the leeway they need to continue dragging
this project along that the community doesn’t want.

Folks?
Like Col. Ricketts?
But remember, he and

Lame-Duck Lofton
are only

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Biomass plant misses deadlines –VDT

David Rodock writes on the front page of the Sunday VDT today
(the highest profile news source for the region) that

Biomass plant misses deadlines:
Will the plant move forward?



The Wiregrass Power LLC biomass facility was supposed to have met a number
of project goals established by the Economic Development Agreement (EDA)
between the company and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
by April 1, 2011. According to Allen Ricketts, Industrial Authority
project manager, those goals still have yet to be met.

The specific goals in the agreement were that a “finalized engineering
procurement construction contract” would be ready by March 31. By
April 1, the company was supposed to have finalized both a power
purchase/transmission agreement along with a wastewater/biosolids
agreement.

They’ve been slipping deadlines for quite some time.
According to page 4 of that EDA (which you can see for yourself

on the LAKE web site):

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Shell companies: Adage and Wiregrass Power LLC



Look through the shell companies like Adage to the real backers.
Why is the source of

the recent news about Adage biomass
plants

being cancelled
the Charlotte Business Journal?
Adage is “An Areva/Duke Energy advanced biopower company.”
And Charlotte is where Duke Energy is based.

John Downey concludes

his article in the Charlotte Business Journal of 16 March 2011:

The joint venture has yet to build a biomass plant anywhere. DePonty
says it is clear that Adage will not achieve the goal announced when
Duke and Areva formed it to build 10 to 12 biomass plants around the
country by 2013.

Seems like the biomass gold rush is fizzling.



Meanwhile, back in Valdosta, Wiregrass Power LLC,
the shell company for the biomass plant, is owned by
Sterling Planet, whose founder and chairman

Sonny Murphy
spoke at the groundbreaking for

the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant, another Sterling Planet subsidiary.
I’m sure Chairman Murphy is aware that

his solar plant is already completed
while his biomass plant

still has no suppliers of raw materials, goods, or services nor buyers for its electricity.
Also, the biomass plant site preparation start date is now 1 June 2011,
when, if I’m not mistaken, it used to be January 2011.
And at the most recent VLCIA board meeting, the only mention I heard
of biomass was by a citizen
who spoke against it
while the VLCIA’s project manager
spoke at some length about the completion of the solar plant.
Seems to me building out the solar plant in two directions,
like VLCIA discussed at a previous board meeting, would make the
most sense at this point.
I guess we’ll see what Chairman Murphy does.

-jsq

Adage and Gretna’s mayor



That

previous plant in Florida
was the one in Gretna, Gadsden County, Florida, cancelled last year,
according to

John Downey in the Charlotte Business Journal, 16 October 2010.
In the Gretna case, the mayor of Gretna posted

a press release 16 March 2010 saying:

Mayor Anthony Baker of the City of Gretna announced today that in light
of Adage, LLC’s decision to suspend activity on its proposed Bioenergy
facility slated for construction in Gretna (as well as suspension
of its application for an air permit through the Florida Department
of Environmental Protection) that the City now considers this matter
closed and will take no further action on Adage’s request to locate
this facility in Gretna. Inasmuch as the Bioenergy Plant could neither
legally operate nor be sited in Gretna without an air permit, the City
concluded that this was no longer a viable project and Adage’s decision
to suspend activity on its air permit indicated that further consideration
of the project by the City was unwarranted. Since there were no issues
pending before the City of Gretna requiring action by its Commission
relative to the Plant, the Mayor deemed termination of the project as
final disposition of this matter as far as the City is concerned.

This is despite promises of

jobs, jobs, jobs:

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