National nuclear “relapse” filled with corporate deception, taxpayer subsidies and abuse of monopoly customers; Duke officials quietly cite risk of more failures 65 times
Despite cancelling 18 past reactors prior to completion, thus wasting billions of customer dollars, and while quietly loading a regulatory filing with 65 cautions of complexities that risk even more failures, Duke Energy plans a massive, 16,000 megawatt construction scheme for “advanced” nuclear reactors in the Carolinas.
The corporation will proceed only if our politicians keep allowing Duke officials to force the financial risks onto the backs of taxpayers and monopoly-captive electric ratepayers.
In a letter sent today, NC WARN presses NC Governor Josh Stein to use his public voice and authority to challenge this latest climate-wrecking rip-off by one of the world’s worst polluters, and to demand that corporate stockholders must bear the risks of its executive gamblers.
We appreciate the Governor’s somewhat muted October criticism of Duke’s latest plans to further expand gas-fired power, extend coal-fired power and suppress renewables. Curiously however, he also criticized Duke leaders for delaying until 2037 their ambition to begin operating new nuclear reactors.
Today’s letter outlines the enormous financial, safety and climate risks posed by gambling on experimental nuclear reactors, including the deceptively named “small” modular reactors (SMRs) and the full-sized AP1000 reactor that is stained with a track record of project failures that bankrupted its manufacturer, Westinghouse, in the previous decade.
NC WARN and allies prevailed against Duke Energy’s ill-fated 2005-2017 gamble to build six AP1000s, along with more than 20 “advanced reactors” attempted by other Southeast utilities. That extended debacle was but the latest chapter of Duke Energy and now-subsidiaries failing 18 times while trying to build reactors since the 1970s, costing monopoly-captive customers billions of dollars while failing to generate a single kilowatt of electricity.
Pro-Duke North Carolina regulators already approved over $400 million in exploratory spending by Duke, and the Charlotte-based giant plans to soon commit billions on an “early site permit” near Winston-Salem. Duke officials admit that before starting reactor construction, they will wait to see if other corporations can actually finalize any new reactor designs and build the highly complex plants.
Without political leadership, Duke will spend billions of customer dollars – and raise power bills – year after year as they wait to see if other utilities might be able to wade through the quicksand of complications. All the while, they will keep suppressing solar, wind, energy-saving programs and other climate solutions.
The letter to Stein includes multiple quotes from Duke Energy’s filing that point to the giant gamble. In Duke’s own words, “without continued federal support, the financial risk of nuclear construction could deter development, slowing, delaying, or eliminating progress.”
Duke is relying on past and future Department of Energy (DOE) subsidies, plus at least four pots of new federal money recently enacted. Even so, Duke Energy says it “continues to work with policymakers to secure additional support … such as increased funding for grant programs or potential construction cost overrun protection.”
Moreover, if allowed to continue, Duke Energy’s plans to try yet again to build AP1000s at the Shearon Harris, NC and Lee, SC sites hinge on a DOE guarantee of up to 80% of total project costs (p. 19).
The roughly 10% profit on capital investments granted to electric monopolies is precisely intended to account for risk. And a 70-year-old technology should not require any public subsidy; Duke and others are demanding near-total subsidization exactly because they are best-positioned to realize that their high-stakes bet is likely to fail yet again.
Only with monopoly control over state government and electricity users could a super-rich corporation – run by dozens of millionaire executives and board members – hope to build 16,000 MW of high-risk nuclear power plants. That’s equal to the power of some 20 Shearon Harris nuclear plants, which now generates 900 MW near Raleigh.
Ironically, Duke and subsidiaries have failed in 5 out of 6 previous attempts to build reactors at Shearon Harris. Yet they want public backing to try again at Harris, as well as at the Belews Creek Power Station in Stokes County, NC and the Lee plant in Gaffney, SC.
Due to multiple hazards to public safety, the ongoing, highly deceptive hype about new reactors, and the industry’s demand that taxpayers and electric ratepayers absorb the high risk of repeated project failures, NC WARN and allies will again contest Duke’s multi-billion dollar gamble of our climate and economic future.
Much of the world is transitioning to renewables paired with battery storage – a far cheaper and fairer alternative to nuclear and fracked gas. But the climate crisis continues to accelerate due to rich corporations and nations digging in against change.
We’ve seen Duke Energy’s nuclear horror movie repeatedly over the years. Gov. Josh Stein must challenge the shameless leaders of this state-sanctioned monopoly.
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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.