{"id":8668,"date":"2014-05-06T15:12:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T19:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=8668"},"modified":"2014-05-06T15:16:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T19:16:00","slug":"southern-company-downgraded-to-sell-over-kemper-coal-and-vogtle-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/southern-company-downgraded-to-sell-over-kemper-coal-and-vogtle-nuclear.html","title":{"rendered":"Southern Company downgraded to sell over Kemper coal and Vogtle nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nTime to break out of the utility death spiral by breaking\r\naway from cost overruns at Kemper “clean” Coal\r\nand the Plant Vogtle nuclear boondoggle\r\nand getting on with real renewable solar and wind power.\r\n

\r\nUBS wrote 5 May 2014,\r\n\r\nSouthern Company: Kemper Tantrums; Reducing to Sell<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nReducing to Sell on continued delays for the Kemper IGCC project \r\n<\/strong>\r\n

\r\nWith further delays and increased costs for the Kemper IGCC project\r\nresulting in yet another $380M of writedowns (further slippage\r\ncosting $25M\/month) and now the likely loss of $120M-$150M of bonus\r\ndepreciation as well, we view the current premium P\/E multiple as\r\nuntenable.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhile the Vogtle nuclear project appears to be on track,\r\nthe presence of two major risky projects, both testing new\r\ntechnologies, with one having major ongoing problems, coupled with a\r\nslowing investment and earnings growth rate profile through 2016\r\nlead us to downgrade to Sell.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIt’s not just two risky projects.\r\nWhat will happen to SO’s promises of cheap natural gas power\r\nwhen\r\n\r\nElba Island starts exporting LNG<\/a>?\r\nIf LNG exports there and everywhere else that is being proposed<\/a>\r\ndrive methane prices up like\r\n\r\nT. Boone Pickens<\/a> and everybody else expects,\r\nwon’t that make SO’s methane plants as big an albatross around their\r\nneck as their “clean” coal project and their Plant Vogtle boondoggle?\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nHow about\r\n\r\nSO get out in front<\/a> with its\r\n\r\nlargest-in-the-U.S. private R&D operation<\/a> and lead the country in a smart grid to connect\r\nrenewable solar power inland and wind power offshore?\r\nStarting with\r\n\r\nutility-owned rooftop solar<\/a>, as Tom Fanning\r\nproposed last May and Steven Chu now is pushing:\r\nOr SO can join the\r\n\r\n“death spiral”<\/a>, as Wall Street calls it,\r\nof\r\n\r\nutilities that won’t do renewable energy<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nAs an SO shareholder myself, I prefer Southern Company lead and\r\nmake its stock worth more, not less.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time to break out of the utility death spiral by breaking away from cost overruns at Kemper “clean” Coal and the Plant Vogtle nuclear boondoggle and getting on with real renewable solar and wind power. UBS wrote 5 May 2014, Southern Company: Kemper Tantrums; Reducing to Sell, Reducing to Sell on continued delays for the […]","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":[216,18,6124,104,6687,21,289],"tags":[8753,7522,7632,7360,8701,8708,171,8702,4202,12,7,1884,219,562,8737,6076,6327,107,108,3324,7253,6339,662,6],"class_list":["post-8668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-pipeline-2","category-planning","category-science","tag-coal","tag-death-spiral","tag-elba-island","tag-export","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lng","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-methane","tag-mississippi-power","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-pipeline","tag-plant-ratcliffe","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-southern-company","tag-steven-chu","tag-t-boone-pickens","tag-tom-fanning","tag-ubs","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2fO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668","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=8668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8671,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668\/revisions\/8671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}