Cost overruns of almost $1 billion — so far — at Ga. nuke reactors
Last month, a consortium of utilities including Atlanta-based Southern Company announced cost overruns of almost $1 billion at two new nuclear reactors being built near Waynesboro.
That’s an arresting number under any circumstances, but it looms even larger when you realize that major construction on the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors has basically just begun, with at least five more years of construction to come.
And if costs soar, who’s going to pay for it? Southern Company and its subsidiary, Georgia Power, own 45.7 percent of the project, so its ratepayers’ share of these recent overruns would come to more than $400 million. But according to Buzz Miller, Southern’s executive vice president of nuclear development, that cost will be borne by contractors who are building the project.
“Our official position is that there’s no way we’re going to pay that amount,” Miller said Tuesday.
William Jacobs, a nuclear expert appointed by the Georgia Public Service Commission to monitor construction at Vogtle, warns that additional problems may be coming. In his latest report, he writes that the project is already more than seven months behind schedule, engineering work is not being completed on time, critical components may be delayed and additional potential change orders “could significantly impact” construction costs. Quality assurance issues from major suppliers “continue to be a significant concern for the project.”
In addition, he warns, project owners have yet to agree with contractors on a long-term construction schedule.
“The project is being managed based on short-term forecasts showing work to be accomplished in the next 60 to 90 days,” Jacobs writes. “A first-of-a-kind project of this magnitude and complexity cannot be effectively or efficiently managed using 60-to-90-day forecasts.”
A lot is at stake in the Vogtle project. The new breed of reactors being built at the site — featuring advanced standardized design, streamlined licensing and new construction techniques — are supposed to keep costs steady and bring projects in close to budget and on schedule. That in turn is supposed to spur a new golden era for nuclear power.
However, the problems at Vogtle are not isolated. Two new reactors just under construction in South Carolina, using the identical technology as at Vogtle, are already $560 million over initial estimates and counting. And in Tennessee, efforts to complete a nuclear plant abandoned back in the 1980s have almost doubled in cost. Originally scheduled to accept nuclear material in April, the Tennessee Valley Authority reactor is now expected to go on line late in 2015 at the earliest. And TVA executives acknowledge that the fault is largely their own.
As Miller points out, some of the problems at Vogtle and in the South Carolina project are inherent in being pioneers in construction of a new generation of plants. Since no new nuclear power plants have been built in this country in three decades or longer, suppliers and contractors face a challenge in ramping up to meet the exacting standards required in nuclear construction.
However, S. David Freeman, a former chairman of TVA, warned the TVA board last month that the problems may be inescapable.
“Maybe the problem is in the technology,” he was quoted as saying. “Maybe nuclear power is just such a demanding technology it requires near perfection. It requires so many people to always do the right thing. It just inherently is going to have cost overruns.”
That’s been the challenge of nuclear power from the beginning. Done right — absolutely right — it has great potential as a source of energy, especially in a global climate that is showing every sign of warming, just as scientists have warned. But as we’ve seen, the consequences of doing it wrong can be enormous in financial terms and more importantly in environmental terms.
Theoretically, we know how to handle it. At least we think we do. But it’s a technology in which very small mistakes can have very large repercussions, and when human beings are involved, there is always a significant danger that confidence will outrun competence.
– Jay Bookman
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367 comments Add your comment
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
3:25 pm
Is burning coal less deadly and toxic than it was in the 1970s?
Obviously.
Is it still deadly and toxic?
Obviously.
And if the corporal lived downwind five miles from virtually any coal burning plant in this country, he could find out first hand…
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
3:27 pm
“I don’t see many of the nuke proponents talking about what to do with the waste. There’s only so many Indian Reservations out there…”
Is Yucca Mtn on a reservation? We’ve spent billions studying that site and all indications are that it is a safe repository. Recent challenges have been that the models were only run to predict 10,000 years. Hand wringers are worried about what happens after 10,000 years. My bet is technology in only 1,000 years will be that humans are digging it up to run their hair dryers.
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
June 6th, 2012
3:27 pm
josef:
“If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.” – Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:28 pm
JamVet,
That’s why they’ll only build coal-burning plants upwind from people who don’t matter. DUH!
josef
June 6th, 2012
3:29 pm
SFD
Unless, of course, you live in Nevada or on an Indian Reservation…
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
June 6th, 2012
3:29 pm
JamVet and Matti:
And since a lot of your energy comes from coal who are you screwing ??
Thomas
June 6th, 2012
3:30 pm
That is what happens when you get to spend Other People’s Money- OPM- as addictive as the drug.
Ga. Dome cost- multiply by 1.4 to capture the hand outs
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
June 6th, 2012
3:31 pm
JamVet/Matti:
Typical hypocrisy !
50% Coal !
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/state-regs/pdf/Georgia.pdf
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
June 6th, 2012
3:32 pm
JUST IN !!
JamVet/Matti have just agreed to shut off their air conditioning and use candles because 50% of Georgia’s energy comes from coal. Natural gas for their hot water and cooking is o.k.
Stay tuned ……….. film at 11.
Kamchak ~ Thug from the Steppes
June 6th, 2012
3:34 pm
JUST IN!!
Rabbit holes found on Jay Bookman’s blog.
SSDD
josef
June 6th, 2012
3:35 pm
heathen
Of course, I’m more or less playing EOI here. But a really fascinating little tid bit relative to what you were saying about the 10,000 years…on Hiroshima Day when I was living up in the Northwest a Japanese tour group was visiting at Hanford (remember THAT one!) and the tour guide was doing his spiel. A middle-aged Japanese lady raised her hand, “yes ma’am.” “With respect, sir, but what makes you think this government doing the oversight will still be there 10,000 years from now?”
As for the Indian Reservation aspect…the pressures being put on them is an issue in Indian Country…doesn’t get a lot of play outside…
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/scullvalley/historynativecommunitiesnuclearwaste06142005.pdf
Talking Head
June 6th, 2012
3:36 pm
Union Thugs threaten Gov Walker’s life because they are babies and their candidate didn’t win…where is the DOJ on this one?
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
3:37 pm
corpora, kudos for trying to educate yourself on the matter.
But alas too little too late.
Your IPCC technology that you touted in your first post about “clean coal”?
Tell me exactly how many plants in this country use it?
And when you can’t, I’ll inform you.
I have been too busy to go back and check, but I would almost guarantee that you make no mention of just how few plants in this country have any of these “clean” technologies.
Like I noted earlier, inevitably you Brown Party types go ballistic at any mention of making these companies clean up their poisonous acts. (It will cost too much!!!)
So you are so desperate that you actually quote the EPA!!!
The EPA that your neocon whackjobs almost to a man want to eliminate.
Go figure.
The guy hasn’t hit a lick all year…
Thulsa Doom
June 6th, 2012
3:37 pm
“Then there’s the issue of actually flattening mountains to get the coal but that’s another topic”
Don’t forget,
I think the industry term is “mountain top removal” mining. Pretty damn ugly. They literally shear off the top of the mountain and then mine from there. Getting to the coal is far easier and less costly but at the expense of aesthetics and just plain raping the land. Plus the debris, mud, and runoff goes down the mountainside and clogs up, dams, and otherwise makes streams polluted and uninhabitable by fish and other wildlife.
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
3:37 pm
Is it still deadly and toxic?
Obviously.
And if the corporal lived downwind five miles from virtually any coal burning plant in this country, he could find out first hand…
BS. Tens of thousands live directly downwind of existing coal plants that live long healthy lives.
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
June 6th, 2012
3:39 pm
godless heathen:
Thank you!
Out for the evening ……….. cons be nice to the libs. They’ve had a rough 24 hours.
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:39 pm
Somebody please tell Lil’ Scout I’m not speaking to him because he did not acknowledge the awesomeness of my Band of Brothers quote. Furthermore, my energy comes from fresh fruit, protein bars, dark-roasted coffee, and those little 5-hour energy shots next to the lottery tickets in the quick mart.
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
3:39 pm
JamVet/Matti have just agreed to shut off their air conditioning and use candles because 50% of Georgia’s energy comes from coal.
Forget about being so desperate that you mention the EPA, you are so desperate that you now are reduced to childish, logical fallacies and appeals to common practice and popularity.
Like I said, not a lick all year…
Thulsa Doom
June 6th, 2012
3:40 pm
“If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.” – Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw
Scout,
Fatalistic cultures tend to handle death easier than we do. Doesn’t seem as much of a fear to them as it is them just being resigned to accept their fate.
carlosgvv
June 6th, 2012
3:41 pm
Southern Company will make large financial contributions to the Republicans and they will pass along these cost overruns to the taxpayers. If Democratic voters object, they won’t care. If Republican voters object, the Party will just wave the American flag and all will be well with their electorate.
TaxPayer
June 6th, 2012
3:41 pm
Scout,
What do you think about all that residue from “washing coal”
to make it into “clean coal” 
excuse me but I cannot help myself. Do you think there will be less of it to deal with than there is when you burn the coal first. And what about the mining operations. Can they wash it before they mine it so they only extract the clean part while leaving the rest there, undisturbed and not in our drinking water, etc.
Of course that’s no where near the whole picture when it comes to the use of coal. There’s so much more.
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
3:42 pm
josef,
I worked with an engineer that was involved in the design of some of the original waste containment structures at Hanover. He made much light of the 10,000 year criteria. Like, “So sue me if it fails in 9,000.”. And he had the same question that the Japanese tourist had.
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
3:42 pm
godless @3:37
Maybe, maybe not
http://www.lung.org/assets/documents/healthy-air/coal-fired-plant-hazards.pdf
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
3:43 pm
And thousands more don’t.
Breathing poisons for years on end does that to people, heathen.
Corporal, no luck on finding the exact number of all of those plants that use IGCC technology in this country?
josef
June 6th, 2012
3:44 pm
Matti, ZamVet
Scout’s making a valid point…
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
3:44 pm
What is that, josef?
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
3:47 pm
http://poweringanation.org/index.php/coal-questions-and-answers.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash
We need to do better, however it will be a long time before we are not using coal
TaxPayer
June 6th, 2012
3:48 pm
I have to use a lot of electricity from them coal powered plants to run my water purifier and air cleaner and mercury extraction from Charlie the tuna is a real power consumer. I’m just glad I don’t feed my kids tuna or live near places like that Kingston Fossil Plant, etc.
getalife
June 6th, 2012
3:48 pm
Do you trust them to build a nuke plant that can withstand floods, earthquakes and tornados?
I don’t.
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:49 pm
josef, Scout’s making a valid point…
So? I’m supposed to trot out all the ways I conserve energy, so the cons can pick me apart and call me names? (Yes, I’d hold up my low low energy bills up against anybody’s on here and win.) I’m supposed to pick up and move (AS IF I could sell the house now) to a self-sustaining, underground bungalow on the Kansas prairie somewhere? Please. Let’s not pretend the PSC or anyone who holds any power in this state gives a good gosh darn what I think. I write to them all the time. I make noise. I vote. THEY DON’T CARE.
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
3:49 pm
“Can they wash it before they mine it so they only extract the clean part while leaving the rest there, undisturbed and not in our drinking water, etc.”
You are drinking water that comes from mine waste run-off? That explains a lot. My drinking water supply headwaters is run-off from the truck terminals on Moreland Avenue, but we treat it before we drink it.
Union
June 6th, 2012
3:51 pm
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:39 pm
“Furthermore, my energy comes from fresh fruit, protein bars, dark-roasted coffee, and those little 5-hour energy shots next to the lottery tickets in the quick mart.”
you can do both the shots and the dark roasted? i would be a nervous wreck..
Joseph
June 6th, 2012
3:52 pm
I say we just go ahead and adopt the Cap & Tax plan of the demoncrats… We can go back to horse and buggies for travel and candles for lighting. At least for the next hundred or so years until so called “green energy” is attainable….
Union
June 6th, 2012
3:52 pm
getalife
June 6th, 2012
3:48 pm
“Do you trust them to build a nuke plant that can withstand floods, earthquakes and tornados?
I don’t.”
thats the fun in not knowing until you try..
TaxPayer
June 6th, 2012
3:53 pm
My drinking water supply headwaters is run-off from the truck terminals on Moreland Avenue, but we treat it before we drink it.
OK, that’s a good one. I think the best treatment for that water is to blend with 100 proof. In no time at all, you won’t even remember this exchange.
josef
June 6th, 2012
3:54 pm
HEATHEN
My jury is out on nuclear energy production. I tend to lean toward the anti side, mostly because I don’t think we’ve addressed the matter of waste properly, nor have we addressed the matter of accidents. A sort of mixed blessing, but part of that lies in the fact that we have very little in the way of real life laboratory information and are relying on the hypothetical. I’ve been fascinated by the studies now being conducted in the Pripyat dead zones. It looks like M-ther N-ture is taking care of the mess, minus the cause thereof, Man can’t inhabit it, but the other species seem to be thriving. Is there a lesson there?
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:55 pm
Union,
Not at the same time! Gotta stagger ‘em. Still need help getting to sleep, though.
getalife
June 6th, 2012
3:57 pm
Union,
You can’t eat Pacific tuna and Gulf Coast seafood is not good.
Sure, lets destroy something else.
We lost our moral compass and can’t tell right from wrong.
josef
June 6th, 2012
3:59 pm
MATTI, ZAMVET
Forego the messenger, it’s the message. We ALL are tied into it. That’s why ever how much I may pontificate about nuclear waste and Indian Reservations, the bottom line is I’m consuming like mad and while a cut back here or a turn down there makes me feel good, it really does nothing to address the real problems of cleaning up the mess we’re making…
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:03 pm
josef
I think the difference is that the “messenger” seems to be ok with the status quo and doesn’t think much if anything needs to be done, while the Matti and Jam do.
Of course, to some degree or another most of use are using power generated by coal
TaxPayer
June 6th, 2012
4:04 pm
If it were not for those darned regulations, we could have everything powered by cheap “clean coal” by now.
josef
June 6th, 2012
4:06 pm
BOTH
But the message is still, we’re great apes still sh*tting in our nests…we’re just arguing whose sh*t stinks least…
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
4:06 pm
“OK, that’s a good one. I think the best treatment for that water is to blend with 100 proof. In no time at all, you won’t even remember this exchange.”
I hear that!
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:06 pm
josef
Without getting into a climate change / global warning debate, I liken the issue to Al Gore being called a hypocrite for flying in jets and living in mansions. I can see people’s point when they call him that, however Gore’s hypocrisy doesn’t make global warming true or untrue. In itself it just says he is being a hypocrite
Union
June 6th, 2012
4:07 pm
getalife
June 6th, 2012
3:57 pm
people say the same thing about food in other countries.. i dont think anyone has really dined until they had to stop their meal moving long enough to get it in their mouth.
josef
June 6th, 2012
4:09 pm
BOTH
@ 4:06
I agree.
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:09 pm
josef
I agree to an extent, however I would counter that some people are doing much more than others in regards to energy use, conservation, etc. Is that in itself going to change everything? Nope, but you have to start somewhere
“It only takes a spark, to get the fire going………….”
Union
June 6th, 2012
4:09 pm
Matti
June 6th, 2012
3:55 pm
“Still need help getting to sleep, though.”
me too.. ive tried all of the herbal and homeopathic remedies.. ive finally settled on a combination of meds to do the trick. gets me a solid 4 to 5 hours every night
Paul
June 6th, 2012
4:13 pm
BOTH suck
“. I can see people’s point when they call him that, however Gore’s hypocrisy doesn’t make global warming true or untrue. In itself it just says he is being a hypocrite”
A fine point. So many here cannot seem to separate the message from the messenger. They’re like “but that doctor is fat so how can we believe his research on cardiovascular disease?”
josef
June 6th, 2012
4:13 pm
I’m out for a few…back in a bit…
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
4:16 pm
josef,
Of course it is good counsel to minimize use and waste.
But it has ZERO to do with the ongoing discussion of how clean coal is not clean.
It is nothing more than an Appeal to Emotion – a logical fallacy with the following structure:
Favorable emotions are associated with X.
Therefore, X is true.
This fallacy is committed when someone manipulates peoples’ emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as being true. More formally, this sort of “reasoning” involves the substitution of various means of producing strong emotions in place of evidence for a claim. If the favorable emotions associated with X influence the person to accept X as true because they “feel good about X,” then he has fallen prey to the fallacy.
The corporal often resorts to these kinds of stunts, deflections, etc when cornered in a position that he cannot substantiate…
godless heathen
June 6th, 2012
4:16 pm
josef,
Risk is inherent in every activity. We can do what we can to delay the inevitable but the clock ticks on us all. Like they say about ballplayers, Father Time is still undefeated.
TaxPayer
June 6th, 2012
4:16 pm
The irony. It is thick. Like the choking black smoke. You can almost cut it with the knife.
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:17 pm
Paul
Regardless of people’s politics or views, they see it when they want to see it
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:18 pm
godless @ 4:16
so very true
JamVet
June 6th, 2012
4:21 pm
There is one reason that the poisons and toxins in our land, air and water have been reduced over the past 40 years:
Democrats, moderates, progressives and Greens.
There is one group that has fought those measures virtually every step of the way:
The post-Nixon, fake conservative Republicans.
Go ahead neocons, prove me wrong.
Thulsa Doom
June 6th, 2012
4:22 pm
josef,
With all due respect the jury is not out on nuclear energy. Its clean, used to be cheap and probably could be again , and France which has quite a few green voters, gets 70-80% of its energy from nukes.
As for the waste there are plenty of places we can store it if people and environmentalists will only let us. There is a lot of irrational fear of nukes and nuclear waste.
As for safety nukes can withstand direct hits from a 747 a la 9/11 and in regards to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes they can withstand the worst of them. In addition to withstanding them operations can always be shut down in advance of most natural disasters with the exception of a quake or possibly tornados. But again operations can probably be shut down and its an irrelevant point anyway because a nuke facility can withstand tornados. And there are not a lot of serious quake zones in most of the country outside of the west coast.
And for all its history there are exactly 2 serious accidents. Chernobyl where I think 1,000 or 2,000 people died and radiation leaked from the Japanese site. The Japanese site had design and structural problems from the git go which is why 2 U.S. engineers walked off the job decades ago citing poor safety design.
As for Chernobyl that was a complete meltdown- the worst that could happen and the death toll wasn’t that bad- 31 people died directly and its believed that up to 4,000 additional people died from premature cancer or high radiation. Estimates are even higher for possible long term premature cancer deaths. We lost 100k dead in an earthquake in central Asia several years ago and the tsunami in Asia killed 150k. Life is not without risk folks and outside of one serious accident nuclear history overall has a very safe track record.
As for contaminated bluefin tuna from the Japanese reactor I got news for you guys. You’re much more likely to get cancer from contaminated shrimp and other farmed seafood exports from southeast Asia where sea farms routinely spray their farms with known carcinogens that were banned in the U.S. decades ago. They do it because they get a 20% higher yield and because the US can only inspect about 1% of seafood imports. If you want to worry about something worry about that.
They BOTH suck
June 6th, 2012
4:30 pm
“known carcinogens that were banned in the U.S. decades ago”
damn, damn, damn those regulations
TD: just messing with you, however I will be passing on the tuna. Don’t eat tuna fish out of a can and only a tuna steak every so often, but will be passing on it for the foreseeable future?
Johns creek
June 6th, 2012
4:34 pm
managing on a 60 to 90 day plan? sounds like mismanagement to me. Westinghouse and Shaw have never been known for having effective management. Southern got snookered again, just like they were on Vogtle. Southern did eat several billion on the cost of Plant Vogtle. If these cost increases cannot be contained, there is not another utility that will build a nuclear plant at such a high cost.
Bob Farquhar
June 6th, 2012
7:08 pm
Go figure. For how long now have groups like Georgian’s Against Nuclear Energy, now Southern Watch, and Georgia WAND said this would happen? What a surprise, construction has barely started and we already have cost overruns.
I find it lauhable what Southern’s executive vice president of nuclear development said that the contractors can pick up the cost. Yeh, right pal, I can just see that happening.
When are we going to learn? If there’s money to be made,…… and no, nuclear power is not 100%, nothing is.
Cheers
Vogtle nuclear power project – a money pit? « nuclear-news
June 7th, 2012
1:36 am
[...] at the earliest. And TVA executives acknowledge that the fault is largely their own…… http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/06/06/cost-overruns-of-almost-1-billion-so-far-at-ga-nuke... Like this:LikeBe the first to like this [...]
Joel Edge
June 7th, 2012
6:58 am
“there is always a significant danger that confidence will outrun competence.”
And in these days of declining competence the danger becomes even greater. I won’t want anything designed by some the blockheads I’ve met in the last twenty years.
independent thinker
June 7th, 2012
8:56 pm
And the price of natural gas keeps going down and down as supplies keep increasing- but we need those more expensive nuke plants because they are more cost eficcient and safer than natural gas? Do they think we all fell off the turnip truck?????????
paxus
June 8th, 2012
2:16 am
France, really? Every french reactor under construction in the west is delayed and over budget, many of them (like in France and Finland) significantly so. See http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7LC4J420111012
and
http://paxus.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/future-so-bright-i-gotta-wear-shades/
at0mgrrl
June 8th, 2012
3:12 pm
WHAT?? Is this public opinion turned against nuclear? NO NUKES NO COAL NO FRACKING WAY, y’all!
Reactor Reax: Nuclear Energy Reporting This Week » NFC
June 8th, 2012
9:27 pm
[...] Cost overruns of almost $1 billion — so far — at Ga. nuke reactors, (op-ed), Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 6, 2012. Jay Bookman: “A lot is at stake in the Vogtle project. The new breed of reactors being built at the site — featuring advanced standardized design, streamlined licensing and new construction techniques — are supposed to keep costs steady and bring projects in close to budget and on schedule. That in turn is supposed to spur a new golden era for nuclear power.” [...]
Total cost of nuclear - Page 4 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
June 11th, 2012
5:17 pm
[...] [...]