{"id":4782,"date":"2013-07-18T12:59:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T16:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4782"},"modified":"2013-07-18T13:01:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T17:01:26","slug":"ga-psc-member-ties-plant-vogtle-nuke-cost-overruns-to-kemper-coal-in-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/ga-psc-member-ties-plant-vogtle-nuke-cost-overruns-to-kemper-coal-in-mississippi.html","title":{"rendered":"GA PSC member ties Plant Vogtle nuke cost overruns to Kemper Coal in Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIf Georgia Power stonewalls on cost overruns, will it lose\r\nat least one Commissioner this time?\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLong-time nuclear supporter Tim Echols suggested at\r\n\r\nthe hearings this morning<\/a>\r\nthat cost overruns at nuclear Plant Vogtle should be capped like Southern Company\r\nwas forced to do for Kemper Coal by the Mississippi PSC.\r\nStandard & Poor’s already\r\n\r\ndowngraded SO because of Kemper Coal<\/a>\r\nand two analysts have\r\n\r\ndowngraded SO for sticking to coal and nukes instead of doing more solar and wind<\/a>.\r\nIf SO’s majority part Georgia Power loses the GA PSC, it could be curtains\r\nfor Plant Vogtle’s new nukes.\r\n

\r\nRay Henry wrote for AP this morning,\r\n\r\nSouthern Co. challenged on nuclear plant costs<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSouthern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power has asked to raise the budget\r\nfor its share of massive project by $737 million to roughly $6.85\r\nbillion.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPublic Service Commission Tim Echols asked whether the firm has\r\nconsidered offering a deal like one it reached in Mississippi over a\r\nseparate plant that also proved expensive to build. The company has\r\nabsorbed $540 million in losses in Mississippi and could face more.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nRemember, Tim Echols has for two years now been\r\n\r\none of GA PSC’s staunchest supporters of solar power<\/a>.\r\nBack in March, the same Commissioner said about Plant Vogtle,\r\n\r\naccording to Hope Jensen for WRDW 15 March 2013<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“The questions is: ‘Is this still the best deal for our people?'”\r\nsaid Echols, and he says from what he’s seen, the answer is yes.\r\n“Even with this cost increase, [it’s] still $4 billion cheaper to\r\noperate this plant than the next best thing, which would be natural\r\ngas.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHow long will it take Tim Echols to realize natural gas isn’t the next best thing?\r\nSolar power is a better thing than than either nukes or gas:\r\ncheaper to build, and far cheaper to operate, because solar requires no fuel.\r\n\r\nNatural gas is a backup for solar and wind<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLast fall we saw\r\n\r\nFitch reaffirm SO’s ratings<\/a> the day after GA PSC rubberstamped\r\nVogtle cost overruns.\r\nLooks to me like GA PSC breaking that rubber stamp could stop the\r\nflow of other people’s money into Plant Vogtle.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt’s time to ask the same question of Georgia Power that\r\n\r\nGloria Tatum asked of Southern Company<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n…why are you gambling the company’s future and the health of their\r\nenvironment and their citizens on antiquated, dangerous and very\r\nexpensive nuclear energy, when the Southeast is an untapped gold\r\nmine of safe, clean and cheap solar energy. If Germany — which\r\nis a much colder country — can meet half of their energy needs\r\nfrom solar in just a few years, why can’t Georgia?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nDear Tim Echols and GA PSC: now that\r\n\r\nyou have affirmed a week ago that solar is viable in Georgia<\/a>,\r\nisn’t it time to stop\r\n\r\nthe Vogtle boondoggle<\/a>\r\nand get on with clean sun and wind power?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216,142,17,8,18,6124,104],"tags":[275,712,8753,1606,8746,1846,8707,8701,8708,171,8702,12,7,562,8737,6338,6684,108,1088,6],"class_list":["post-4782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-cwip","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","tag-bond","tag-boondoggle","tag-coal","tag-cost-overruns","tag-cwip","tag-fitch","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-rating","tag-sp","tag-southern-company","tag-tim-echols","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1f8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4784,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782\/revisions\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}