NC Needs Genuine Climate Leadership
Tell Gov. Cooper to ActSince the early 1990s, NC WARN has watch-dogged the state’s nuclear power industry over its “low-level” and high-level waste practices, along with reactor safety and security issues.
North Carolina regulators technically rejected NC WARN’s March motion on Monday but they pressed Duke Energy with the questions we raised about the viability of the effort to build twin nuclear plants in Gaffney, SC.
Two good stories on the NCUC order:
Associated Press
Charlotte Business Journal
Today NC WARN called for state regulators to disallow any further spending by Duke Energy on two proposed reactors now that its 13-year odyssey is off the rails following the recent collapse of the Toshiba-Westinghouse nuclear division.
If the NC Utilities Commission approves Duke Energy’s latest 15-year Integrated Resource Plan, it risks bankrupting North Carolina’s economy through costly overbuilding of high-risk power plants. And the utility will continue fouling our air and water while escalating the global climate crisis as one of the world’s largest carbon polluters.
Op-Ed by Jim Warren. The climate responds quickly to methane, so reducing emissions can slow global warming in the short term. North Carolinians must require Duke Energy to stop its massive fracked gas expansion and help avoid climate chaos.
A class-action lawsuit was filed against Duke Energy Florida and Florida Power & Light Co. alleging the monopoly electricity providers force millions of Florida customers to pay unlawful charges in connection with their electricity rates to fund the companies’ nuclear power plant projects, some of which have been abandoned. The suit … accuses Duke Energy Florida and FPL of overcharging through unconstitutional price hikes that increase customers’ electricity bills in order to fund nuclear construction costs.
During yesterday’s day-long hearing before the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) on the 13thsemi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring report, expert witnesses on behalf of the PSC predicted that additional delays beyond the current 39-month delay are likely for the two nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia along the Savannah River. Though five years into the project, only 26 percent of construction is complete.
Just a week before Georgia Power witnesses are set to testify before the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) on the 13th semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring report, significant project management changes and major cost increases were announced that will negatively impact customers for the already over budget two nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro along the Savannah River.
Duke Energy officials describe the flaw as a small depression in a welding seam. They say the public was never in danger. Critics aren’t so sure.
“The industry has had this problem for a number of years and they haven’t been able to figure out how to prevent it from occurring,” said Jim Warren, with the nuclear watchdog group NC WARN.
In a recent poll, many US scientists said construction of nuclear power plants would help with climate change. This reflects a major disconnect between scientific expertise and energy and economic realities, at least in most nations. Unfortunately, the predictions by NC WARN and many others, beginning in 2004 when Dick Cheney announced the US nuclear “renaissance,” were entirely on target. We warned that corporations trying to build nuclear plants would waste billions of public dollars and many years while limiting solar, wind and efficiency advances that could help us cut carbon emissions fairly quickly.
The biggest construction project in Georgia is also becoming one of the biggest budget busters in state history. And nearly every Georgian with a monthly electric bill may end up paying for it.
