Regulators question CO2 plan for $19.3 billion Virginia nuclear unit

[kristopher]

SCC Asks Tough Questions about Nukes, CO2 Emissions
Posted on December 30, 2015 by James A. Bacon

Given the legal and regulatory uncertainties associated with Clean Power Plan, which requires Virginia to reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2030, Dominion Virginia Power’s 15-year strategic plan filed in July 2015 is reasonable and in the public interest, the State Corporation Commission (SCC) ruled in a final ruling released today. However, the SCC also detailed substantial additional analysis it would like to see in the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) Dominion files next year.

The electric company had filed four broad options for responding to the mandates of the Clean Power Plan, including one that relied heavily upon nuclear power. The power company did not recommend one option over the others in July because it did not know precisely how the Clean Power Plan would impact Virginia. While the Environmental Protection Agency has finalized Virginia’s CO2 emission targets since then, the state still has yet to choose between two possible approaches, whether to focus on the absolute volume of CO2 emissions or CO2 emissions on a kilowatt-hour basis. That decision could have significant impact on how power companies respond to the mandates.

Consumer and environmentalist groups had urged the SCC to reject the IRP on the grounds that the projected $19.3 billion cost for a third nuclear unit at the North Anna power station was excessive under any scenario. A project of that magnitude, the SCC noted, would roughly double the size of Virginia’s electric rate base.

While the SCC saw no need to amend the 2015 IRP, it noted pointedly that it views the IRP only as a planning document, “not as a document that will determine future Commission decisions on future resources or the recovery of specific expenditures.”

The commission instructed Dominion to take a very different approach to its 2016 IRP...

http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2015/12/scc-asks-tough-questions-about-nukes-co2-emissions.html

[NNadir]

1. It's vastly cheaper than any other option, cheaper in fact, than the number of so called...

..."renewable energy" crap that all of our anti-nukes are trying to foist on us, since so called "renewable energy" plants don't work very well, last very long, and the number of them that don't require redundant and deadly dangerous fossil fuel plants to back them up is zero.

Right here in New Jersey, a few weeks removed from the winter solstice, the wind isn't blowing and it's dark as hell. If we didn't have our nuclear plants, including the one built in 1969, we'd be burning gas.

Moreover, the nuclear plants are clean, inasmuch as they have a very high energy to mass ratio.

[kristopher]

3. No it isn't.

[Massacure]

4. Why is the proposed North Anna cost so large compared to the Virgil Summer and Vogtle plants though?

The costs of Vogtle 3 & 4 is expected to run around 16 billion dollars and Virgil Summer 2 & 3 are expected to run 11 billion. Why then would Dominion need 19 billion for a third reactor at the North Anna plant? That's more than double the cost compared to the four reactors already under construction.

[kristopher]

5. Could be they have no real intention of building it

The way they've convinced legislators to structure their cost recovery it looks like they can collect about $5B before they ever commit to the decision to build.

http://powerforthepeopleva.com/2015/08/10/dominion-admits-cost-of-north-anna-3-will-top-19-billion/

http://www.fredericksburg.com/business/local_business/north-anna-reactor-plan-hits-resistance/article_09b27f84-c891-5a2c-9b28-0a3df45c8a70.html