Nuclear power project abandoned as energy landscape changes, costs escalate

Kevin Marsh, chief executive of SCANA, noted that several factors beyond the company’s control have changed since the construction project was launched, including the Westinghouse bankruptcy. SCE&G had considered building just one of the reactors, but rejected that plan after Santee Cooper withdrew from the effort to build the reactors at the V. C. Summer nuclear station northwest of Columbia.

When Santee Cooper let SCE&G know it would pull out, Marsh said, the project could not go forward. His company “reached out to a couple of utilities’’ to take Santee Cooper’s place, but had no luck, he said.

“We arrived at this very difficult but necessary decision following months of evaluating the project from all perspectives,” Marsh said.

Santee Cooper officials said the project had been delayed by the inability to get major construction pieces on time, as well as problems dealing with Westinghouse. The state-owned utility blamed much of the project’s troubles on Westinghouse. Those troubles contributed to the project costing Santee Cooper 75 percent more than originally forecast and delaying its completion by four years, the state utility said.

Santee Cooper also said falling demand for energy made the need for the two reactors less urgent.

“The winds of time …. have certainly changed the way that the world looks today for completing these units,” ’Carter said. “We are disappointed that our contractor has not fulfilled their obligations to us.’’

Carter said if the federal government believes atomic energy is worthwhile to pursue, then the the federal government should consider helping to build nuclear power plants. The cancellation of the nuclear project may have another un intended result, Santee Cooper said: The company may have to use a coal-fired power plant which the company had mothballed to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Friends of the Earth, an early and persistent critic of the project, was quick to react, saying:

The decision to abandon the V.C. Summer project is of monumental proportion and is a full admission that pursuit of the project was a fool’s mission right from the start. The damage that this bungled project has caused to ratepayers and the state’s economy must be promptly addressed by SCE&G, Santee Cooper and regulators and all effort must be made to minimize that damage. SCE&G and Santee Cooper must now take on a large part of the project’s cost.

…

Warnings about potential problems with the project were raised in 2008 and repeatedly since then by Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club but they were blindly ignored by both SCE&G and Santee Cooper as well as regulators. There was ample warning about the pitfalls that the project would face so it appears that regulators may have simply bowed to the will of SCE&G and rubber stamped decisions at every step of the way without proper review. Regulators have so far not attempted to make a case that they provided proper oversight and the pressure is now on them to explain their actions that have led to this debacle.

Agencies charged with looking out for the public interest – the S.C. Public Service Commission and the Office of Regulatory Staff – failed the citizens of the state by not performing due diligence of the unsubstantiated claims made by SCE&G about the project’s cost, schedule and ease of construction. It was evident from the start that cost overrun, schedule delays and problems with an untested construction method were fraught with problems. Though the handwriting has been on the wall for years cost overruns and construction challenges never received proper review until the project was on the brink of failure.

Friends of the Earth concluded:

Rather than applauding the decision, this is a time for reflection and to prepare for formal proceedings before the South Carolina Public Service Commission that will review how this debacle happened and how to refund ratepayers money due to a string of imprudent decisions.