Why should we expect Southern Company to be any better at controlling
costs now than back in the 1970s and 1980s when its original
nukes on the Savannah River went massively over budget?
Massively as in 26 times as much per unit as originally projected.
Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC 30 Jan 2012,
A financial look at Plant Vogtle nuclear projects,
When the two original nuclear units at Plant Vogtle were planned,
the total cost estimate was $660 million.
Yet, as
Jon Gertner reported for NYTimes 16 July 2006,
The plant took almost 15 years to move from blueprints to being
operational. And by the time it began producing electricity in the
late 1980’s, its total cost, $8.87 billion, was so far overbudget
that Vogtle became yet another notorious example of the evils of
nuclear energy….
The grand plan was to have four reactors. Instead, it was scaled
back to two, Vogtle Unit 1 (finished in 1987) and Vogtle Unit 2
(1989).
That’s right, 4 nuclear units were planned for $660,000,000
fifteen (15) years later only 2 units were built,
for $8,870,000,000.
That’s more than $8 billion in cost overruns,
or more than 13 times the original cost estimate.
So per unit, that’s more than 26 times the original estimate,
or more than $4 billion per unit.
Swartz provided a handy table of cost estimates by year:
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