{"id":134,"date":"2013-02-09T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/hb-267-financing-costs-construction-of-nuclear-generating-plant.html"},"modified":"2013-02-09T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T13:00:00","slug":"hb-267-financing-costs-construction-of-nuclear-generating-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/hb-267-financing-costs-construction-of-nuclear-generating-plant.html","title":{"rendered":"HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\nAs promised,<\/a>
\na bipartisan bill was filed Thursday to stop Georgia Power from
\ncharging for nuclear cost overruns on Plant Vogtle; this could free up some financing for Georgia to move ahead on solar and wind power.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n2013-2014 Regular Session – HB 267
\nFinancing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant; change calculation that utility can recover from customers<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nA BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Code Section 46-2-25 of the
\nOfficial Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to the procedure for
\nchanging any rate, charge, classification, or service and the
\nrecovery of financing costs, so as to change the calculation used
\nunder certain circumstances to determine the costs of financing
\nassociated with the construction of a nuclear generating plant that
\na utility may recover from its customers; to provide for related
\nmatters; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws;
\nand for other purposes.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe bill would add this text to Georgia Code:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n…provided, however, that in the event the amounts recorded in the
\nutility’s construction work in progress accounts plus the amount of
\nall financing costs accrued on any construction work in progress
\naccounts exceeds the costs approved by the commission in the
\noriginal certificate of the nuclear generating plant granted under
\nCode Section 46-3A-5, the cost of equity portion of the financing
\ncosts shall be calculated using a rate no higher than the utility’s
\nactual cost of debt.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nLet’s see what Georgia Power does to fight this one.
\nSo far, it’s<\/p>\n


\nreleased this homily
\n
\nthat GPB quoted<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe PSC has complete oversight of the project and has verified and
\napproved every dollar spent to date. To date, the Commission has
\nconducted seven separate public hearings (it is about to perform its
\n8th) in which it has verified and approved each dollar spent, has
\nreceived reports from its independent monitor Dr. Bill Jacobs, and
\ncontinually assessed the economics of the project.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nFunny how Georgia Power didn’t mention
\n
\nthat<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n“Nuclear engineer William Jacobs said poor construction material,
\ncontractor mistakes and oversight delays will mean the Unit 3
\nreactor won’t be ready until July of 2017.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAt the December 2012 GA PSC meeting to which Jacobs spoke, Commissioner Tim Echols
\nsaid Georgia Power hadn’t asked for a rate increase.
\nWhich was because
\n
\nthey just got a rate increase in November<\/a>
\nand
\n
\nGA PSC also rubberstamped cost Plant Vogtle overruns in August.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe cosponsors of HB 267 are
\n
\nJeff Chapman (R\u2014Brunswick) District 167<\/a>
\nand
\n
\nKarla Drenner (D\u2014Avondale Estates) District 85<\/a>.
\nMaybe they looked into Georgia Power and SO’s record on
\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\nnuclear cost overruns last time they built nukes.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nJeff Chapman was in the Georgia Senate in 2009, when
\n
\nhe voted against SB 31,<\/a>
\n“Energy Rate Increases to Finance Nuclear Power Plant Construction”,
\nthe bill that lets Georgia Power charge
\nthat Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)
\nthat appears on customers’ bills as
\n
\nNuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider<\/a>.
\nRep. Karla Drenner voted for 2009’s SB 31, but now she’s a co-sponsor of HB 267!
\nYay Karla; yay Jeff!\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nHow about some more co-sponsors to chip away at one leg of
\n
\nSouthern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool<\/a>?\n<\/p>\n

\nSubsidies are all that prop up the nuclear industry,
\nand Plant Vogtle subsidies (and
\nnatural gas subsidies<\/a>)
\nare what Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company
\nare using to suck up lots of money that could be going to
\nsolar inland and wind offshore.
\n
\n<\/a>
\nMore than two years ago
\n
\na study from
\nArizona State University<\/a>
\nsaid Georgia is the #3 state that could benefit most from solar electricity,
\nboth for our use here in Georgia, and for selling at a profit to other states.
\nAdd to HB 267 this year’s
\n
\nSB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act<\/a>
\nand we’ll start to get somewhere.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nIt’s time to get on with real 21st century power:
\n
\nconservation, efficiency<\/a>, sun, and wind, for jobs, health, air, and water.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised, a bipartisan bill was filed Thursday to stop Georgia Power from charging for nuclear cost overruns on Plant Vogtle; this could free up some financing for Georgia to move ahead on solar and wind power. 2013-2014 Regular Session – HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant; change calculation that utility can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,142,14,264,265,8,18,2,104,23,24,36],"tags":[8736,712,716,28,8746,714,8704,8754,8755,713,8701,8708,8699,387,710,147,8702,12,7,8737,711,715,8713,400,717,8714,108,6,8716],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cwip","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-boondoggle","tag-charge","tag-cost","tag-cwip","tag-debt","tag-economy","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-financing","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-hb-267","tag-jeff-chapman","tag-karla-drenner","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-overruns","tag-rate","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sb-51","tag-service","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}