Energy

Struggling Nuclear Construction Project Persists Despite Massive Costs

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Tim Pearce Energy Reporter
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Public utility Southern Company wants to continue expanding Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant, despite massive cost overruns since the project began in 2008.

Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern, filed a recommendation Thursday that the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) allow the utility to continue work on Vogtle, according to a Southern press release.

Southern officials met with the Department of Energy in early August to discuss whether further work on the plant could be reasonably financed. The company also needed to reassess the project’s economic benefit to customers after years of delays and overruns, Bloomberg reports.

“Since the beginning of the Vogtle expansion, we have worked to minimize the impact of this critical project on customers’ monthly bills and, even as we assessed our options of whether or not to continue the project, our focus has been to ensure long-term value,” Georgia Power president Paul Bowers said in a statement.

The expansion’s expected cost has increased from $9.7 billion in 2008 to $19 billion, not including financing costs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Vogtle’s owner’s have refused to “throw in the towel” like a similar project in South Carolina at the beginning of August. SCANA Corp. scrapped the construction of two nuclear reactors after long and costly delays, Axios reports.

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