Delays for SC nuclear plant pressure industry

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

Expensive delays are piling up for the companies building new nuclear power plants, raising fresh questions about whether they can control the construction costs that crippled the industry years ago.

The latest announcement came this week from executives at SCANA Corp., which has been warned by its builders the startup of the first of two new reactors in South Carolina could be delayed two years or more. SCANA Corp. and plant co-owner Santee Cooper have not accepted that timeline from the companies designing and building the reactors, nor have they accepted responsibility for additional costs.

That announcement may well foreshadow more delays for a sister project in eastern Georgia, and they have caught the attention of regulators and Wall Street.

<snip>

Originally, the first of SCANA Corp.'s two new reactors was supposed to start commercial operation in April 2016. ... Without speeding up work, the first plant would be finished during the first half of 2019. The second of its new reactors would come online one year later.

<snip>

Additional delays could prove unwelcome news for two pro-nuclear Republicans seeking re-election in November to Georgia's Public Service Commission, H. Doug Everett and Lauren "Bubba" McDonald.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Delays-for-SC-nuclear-plant-pressure-industry-5692710.php

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These dirty dangerous expensive boondoggles should be canceled now, before they waste any more money on them.

They were supposed to be operating by 2010, under Bush's stupid "Nuclear Power 2010" program.

They weren't delayed by "hippie protestors" or "anti-nukes", they were delayed because this is an extremely difficult, dangerous, and expensive technology. And they are completely unnecessary.

And I sure hope this ongoing boondoggle helps defeat the idiot Republicans who fell for this scam.

[mbperrin]

1. The most dangerous, filthiest, subsidized, longest lasting poison ever developed

as a way to boil water.

Boggles the mind that anyone could support building more for ANY reason. It would be less lethal to start a Support Ebola - Viruses Have Rights, Too, movement, than to continue with any more knuckle-headed, er, nuclear plants.

[grahamhgreen]

3. +1

[jwirr]

2. Just asking: Are the engineers keeping their paperwok under their desks instead of on their

computer? Are they taking it with them when they leave so that it has to be duplicated again? Are they deliberately running the construction period longer so that they have work?

I am not going to tell anyone where I got this idea but I can tell you that it has happened while building another nuke years ago. And I heard it from a worker who was one of the ones who was doing it.

[wildbilln864]

4. interesting ...

thanks.

[Fred Friendlier]

5. Thanks for the News

A quick romp through Google turns up multiple copies of the same AP story, but very little additional information.

Nobody says what is the source of the delay, just that it might cost two million dollars a day. I would be interested to know whether the problem is on the nuke side or on the general construction side. Two generations ago America was the country that built stuff, but we have gotten out of practice and this does not bode well for our long term prosperity.