63% failure rate has wasted billions; now Duke wants customers and taxpayers stuck with even more risk for mythical reactors
Statement by Executive Director Jim Warren:
A new analysis by NC WARN shows that Duke Energy and its subsidiaries cancelled 18 of the nuclear reactors they tried to build between the 1970s and 2017, and another closed years ahead of schedule. The failed projects wasted some $9 billion (in current dollars), soaking monopoly-captive customers with multiple rate hikes for nothing in return.
Now Duke Energy leaders are pressing NC legislators to shift even more of the financial risks for their current speculation on mythical reactor technology. Duke proposes to build dozens of “small modular reactors” in the 2030s and beyond although experimental designs and cost estimates have for years remained elusive in the real world and competitive marketplaces.
Such SMRs, if ever completed, would each cost billions and would still be very large, dangerous facilities posing safety and security hazards to communities, soaring power bills and tons of deadly waste for which the industry still has no solution.
In a letter to Gov. Josh Stein and legislative leaders sent today, NC WARN said Senate Bill 261 would expand Duke’s ability to saddle customers with the high costs of new nukes, even if the plants never produce power – as happened repeatedly in the past.
Few, if any, corporations will risk their own money for new nukes due to a decades-long history of bankruptcies and project failures by the world’s largest engineering and construction corporations. Most pro-nuclear corporations are demanding billions in taxpayer and electric customer subsidies that shift the risk off the private sector.
Adding insult to injury, in Duke Energy’s monopoly territory in North Carolina, the utility would receive a guaranteed 10% profit on the costs of new plants.
In the early 2000s, the industry attempted a two-decade, heavily hyped nuclear “renaissance” – then failed once again when 29 of 31 reactors were cancelled in midstream and bankrupted the Westinghouse corporation. The two “advanced passive” reactors finally completed in Georgia cost $35 billion – double the original estimate.
Six of those AP1000 reactors were attempted by Duke Energy. Vigorously opposed by NC WARN and allies, all were scrapped by 2017 after an extremely hyped campaign that faded to a 13-year corporate humiliation, wasting over $2 billion of captive customers’ money in the Carolinas and Florida.
Now, the NC Utilities Commission is already allowing Duke to gamble $440 million in public money through 2026 on the experimental SMRs that would not generate a watt of power until at least 2035. The new legislation would allow Duke to raise power bills year after year to design, license and possibly someday build dozens of SMRs.
Even greater than the financial risk is that gambling on nuclear flatly defies the rapid action scientists say we need to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. If allowed to bleed its customers annually for nukes, Duke will keep blocking genuine climate measures that are desperately needed.
Any credible debate would see nuclear losing to competition from safe, inexpensive and quickly deployable renewables, energy storage and energy-saving technologies. But as history sadly shows, North Carolina regulators don’t allow balanced debate, and they give Duke Energy nearly everything it asks for.
Duke’s grip over state leaders of both main political parties has also been solid for decades. But during the AP1000 years, conservatives such as the John Locke Foundation agreed with NC WARN and spoke out vigorously against Duke forcing power users to pre-pay for nuclear plants.
Giant corporations make giant mistakes despite the gaudy salaries of top executives. Duke Energy failed on 5 out of 6 attempts to build reactors at its Shearon Harris plant in Wake County.
Gov. Stein and legislative leaders should not let Duke Energy foist the financial risk for high-stakes nuclear speculation onto the backs of electric customers and taxpayers. Investors – not captive customers – are supposed to bear the risks for reckless gambling by corporate decision makers.
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Now in its 37th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes.
