{"id":5068,"date":"2013-08-10T10:49:19","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T14:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2013-08-10T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T14:53:23","slug":"vdt-links-plant-vogtle-nuke-cost-overruns-to-kemper-coal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/vdt-links-plant-vogtle-nuke-cost-overruns-to-kemper-coal.html","title":{"rendered":"VDT links Plant Vogtle nuke cost overruns to Kemper Coal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nEven the VDT has caught on to cost overruns for Kemper Coal and the\r\nnew nukes at Plant Vogtle.\r\n

\r\nVDT posted an AP article 29 July 2013,\r\n\r\nMiss. deal may figure into Georgia nuclear plant<\/a>,\r\nand\r\nCharlotte Observer posted it the day before, including\r\n\r\nRay Henry<\/a>\r\nas the author,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn Mississippi, the Southern Co. utility took financial losses when\r\nthe cost of building a new power plant went over budget. In Georgia,\r\nanother of the company’s projects is going over budget, but it has\r\nnot yet taken a financial hit.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company subsidiary Mississippi Power promised utility\r\nregulators that it would charge its customers only for $2.4 billion\r\nin costs for building a coal-fired power plant in Kemper Country.\r\nThose customers will also have to pay off another $1 billion in\r\nbonds for the project, though the utility cannot make a profit off\r\nthat borrowed money.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe utility’s deal in Mississippi has become a point of debate as\r\nGeorgia regulators consider who should pay for the increased cost of\r\nbuilding two more nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl),\r\nsoutheast of Augusta. Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols said he\r\nwants Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power to consider a\r\nMississippi-style deal here, and Georgia regulators are carefully\r\ntracking financial developments in Mississippi.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nEchols said he was interested in the idea of a project spending cap.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I’m sure when they made that deal they didn’t think they were going\r\nto over the cap, but they did,” Echols said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOh, come now,\r\n\r\nthey went 26 times over budget last time<\/a>.\r\nWhy would anyone believe Georgia Power and Southern Company would\r\nnot run over budget this time?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Gov. Nathan Deal said this week that it would be a “good\r\nsolution” if Southern Co. could absorb more of the costs.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company and Georgia Power have lost the governor.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nOpponents of both Southern Co. projects say the settlement agreement\r\nin Mississippi increases the political pressure on Georgia Power to\r\naccept losses rather than pass all extra costs onto customers.\r\nThough the projects are not perfectly comparable because of\r\ndifferences in technology and customer rates, the Mississippi\r\nagreement created a political precedent, said Jenna Garland, a\r\nspokeswoman for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I think a lot of people here in Georgia say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.\r\nWhat a tragedy,'” she said, describing reaction to the Mississippi\r\nproject costs. “And then they look in Georgia and say, ‘Hey, we’re\r\npaying through the nose, too.'”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd a couple days later\r\n\r\nSO CEO Tom Fanning backed off the cost overrun request<\/a>,\r\nwinning Fitch reaffirmation by SO’s and Georgia Power’s ratings.\r\nBut that was just a delay.\r\nThe showdown will come at GA PSC.\r\nDo Georgia Public Service Commissioners want us to keep paying through the nose for that white elephant ont he Savannah River?\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nYou can protest\r\n\r\ndirectly to Georgia Power about that CWIP stealth tax on your bill.<\/a>\r\nOr you can contact\r\n\r\nthe GA PSC or the state legislature.<\/a>\r\n\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even the VDT has caught on to cost overruns for Kemper Coal and the new nukes at Plant Vogtle. VDT posted an AP article 29 July 2013, Miss. deal may figure into Georgia nuclear plant, and Charlotte Observer posted it the day before, including Ray Henry as the author, In Mississippi, the Southern Co. utility […]","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":[216,142,14,17,8,18,19,104,3,133],"tags":[8753,437,8746,8704,8707,8701,8708,8709,171,8702,12,7,46,8737,107,108,1088,6339,8700,6,8742],"class_list":["post-5068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-cwip","category-economy","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-history","category-nuclear","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-coal","tag-cost-overrun","tag-cwip","tag-economy","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-history","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nathan-deal","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-southern-company","tag-tim-echols","tag-tom-fanning","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1jK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068","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=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5073,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions\/5073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}