{"id":5559,"date":"2013-09-04T14:02:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T18:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=5559"},"modified":"2013-09-04T14:10:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T18:10:43","slug":"ga-psc-abdicates-cost-oversight-for-new-nukes-at-plant-vogtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/ga-psc-abdicates-cost-oversight-for-new-nukes-at-plant-vogtle.html","title":{"rendered":"GA PSC abdicates cost oversight for new nukes at Plant Vogtle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nFinish it and then send we the taxpayers and ratepayers a bill?\r\nWhat kind of deal is that?\r\nSo Southern Company already\r\ndodged a Fitch downgrade<\/a> by delaying\r\na decision, and now GA PSC wants to put it off for years more.\r\nThat also delays solar deployment in Georgia, putting us still farther behind.\r\n

\r\nRay Henry wrote for AP yesterday,\r\n\r\nGa. approves deal on nuclear plant costs<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nA debate over the rising cost of building a nuclear power plant in\r\nGeorgia will be delayed for years under an agreement approved\r\nTuesday by Georgia’s utility regulators.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe elected members of Georgia’s Public Service Commission\r\nunanimously approved a deal that will put off a decision on whether\r\nGeorgia Power can raise its budget for building two more nuclear\r\nreactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) until the first of those\r\nreactors is finished. An independent state monitor has estimated the\r\nfirst reactor will be finished in January 2018 at the earliest.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nRegulators will continue monitoring company spending but will not\r\nmake a decision on raising the bottom line budget figure.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo GA PSC will keep watching costs run over budget but will do nothing\r\nabout it.\r\n

\r\nOh, wait, it’s actually worse:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFurther complicating matters, Southern Co. and the plant owners are\r\nsimultaneously negotiating a legal dispute with the plant’s\r\ndesigners and builders worth an estimated $930 million to Georgia\r\ncustomers. Utility regulators said they were concerned that forcing\r\nSouthern Co. to discuss its budget issues in public now might hurt\r\nits stance at the bargaining table.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe deal allows the utility to avoid a politically charged budget\r\nconflict as it deals with significant cost overruns on a separate\r\ncoal gasification project in Mississippi and a rate case in Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWhy is GA PSC helping Southern Company shirk its cost overruns in Mississippi?\r\nIs the Georgia<\/em> Public Service Commission the Mississippi<\/em>\r\nMonopoly Preservation Commission?\r\n

\r\nSo even though GA PSC has heard\r\n\r\nnew nukes make no financial sense<\/a>\r\nand while\r\n\r\nsolar power wins the world like the Internet did<\/a>\r\nGA PSC just voted to let Georgia Power and Southern Company\r\nkeep wasting our resources instead on\r\n\r\nthe radiation-lying document-forging nuclear industry<\/a>\r\neven after\r\n\r\nten nukes have been shut down or cancelled in that past year<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nPerhaps we can elect somebody else to be the\r\n“elected members of Georgia’s Public Service Commission”.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finish it and then send we the taxpayers and ratepayers a bill? What kind of deal is that? So Southern Company already dodged a Fitch downgrade by delaying a decision, and now GA PSC wants to put it off for years more. That also delays solar deployment in Georgia, putting us still farther behind. Ray […]","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":[14,49,17,8,18,104,23,24],"tags":[275,712,1606,8704,8721,1846,8707,8701,8708,171,8702,12,7,217,8737,6327,107,6230,6926,8713,8714,108,2609,6],"class_list":["post-5559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-elections","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-bond","tag-boondoggle","tag-cost-overruns","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-fitch","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mississippi","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-ratcliffe","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-ratepayers","tag-ratings","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-taxpayers","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1rF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559","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=5559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5562,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions\/5562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}