3 ms·

Somehow all the articles criticizing Vogtle keep mentioning the cost overruns, the additional cost to consumers, but don't mention that in Georgia people pay le

Somehow all the articles criticizing Vogtle keep mentioning the cost overruns, the additional cost to consumers, but don't mention that in Georgia people pay less than the national average price per kWh (11 cents vs 12.7) while sunny California, for example pays about twice the average (24.3 cents per kWh). In my state, NY, where 2 reactors were decommissioned in 2020 and 2021, the average price is 22 cents per kWh. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

bobthepanda 3y ago
This cost premium has always existed. https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices
- credit_guy 3y ago
  Good point. Could it be that Georgia already generates a lot of power from its existing nuclear reactors, and has been doing that for a few decades?
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    I mean, all that data is also from when California and New York both had operational reactors. In 2013, CA generated 17 out of 200 GW from nuclear. GA generated 32/120 GW. NY generated 44/136GW. So at least in the case of New York, it generated more power from nuclear as a percentage than GA, and had higher electricity prices, so there doesn't seem to be a correlation. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ It probably has more to do with the fact that electricity is deregulated in CA and NY, where implementations were infamously botched: https://truenergy.com/deregulated-energy-states/ https://truenergy.com/deregulated-energy-states/
    - WillPostForFood 3y ago
      This is how your link describes deregulation in California: "very limited and is conducted by a lottery system called DirectAcccess" There was a semi-deregulation in 1996, but it was largely rolled back in 2001. So any price data post data 2001 should be bucketed in regulated.
    - sarchertech 3y ago
      What’s interesting about those numbers is that Georgia generates much more power per person than California or New York. Georgia has a population of 10 million. California is at 40 Million and New York 20 million.
    - credit_guy 3y ago
      Ok, you are right. But the thing still remains: the supposed Vogtle 3/4 boondoggle of gazzilions of dollars of cost overruns did not result in consumers paying more for electricity. Sure, historically they used to pay less than the national average, but they continue to pay less than the national average, and by about the same amount. The cause could be regulation or deregulation, or better geographic position, or whatever. But the consumers are not paying more, after Vogtle 3, am I right?
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        It resulted in the consumers there paying more than they would have had Vogtle 3/4 not been built.
        credit_guy 3y ago
        Being a counterfactual, your statement is by definition opinion, not fact.
        pfdietz 3y ago
        One can look at the cost of the alternatives and see I'm speaking the truth. Also, demand didn't increase as much as the (likely fraudulent) projections used to justify Vogtle 3/4. All the "nuclear renaissance" nuclear builds aside from Vogtle 3/4 were cancelled because the utilities realized the alternatives were much better economically. V. C. Summer was cancelled after dropping $9B on it. Even with that sunk cost, it still wasn't worth completing. What happened between back then and now is two (well, three) things: fracking crashed the price of natural gas, demand didn't increase as much as utilities said it would, and then (later, after fracking) renewables also became much MUCH cheaper. One can excuse the nuclear industry for not seeing this would happen (or perhaps for not wanting to see that it would happen), but that doesn't change the fact that it did happen, and that the nuclear builds turned out to be economically unjustifiable. Things got so bad for nuclear we were seeing already completed NPPs being shut down because they couldn't even make an operating profit! The other reactor at TMI had been cash flow negative for the last six years it was in operation, for example. In that sort of environment, building a new NPP (which would also have to amortized construction and financing costs) would be totally out of the question economically.
  - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    Georgia has some of the largest coal plants in the country. The power company (Georgia Power, part of Southern Company) was allowed to pre-bill customers for the costs of the new plant well over a decade in advance. If you lived in Georgia before the new units came online, you paid to have them built but received no benefit from them. Investors in Southern Company received unwarranted protection from the consequences of poor project implementation and cost overruns on the back of the utility's customers.
  - bumby 3y ago
    Your same source has information on the relative proportion of generation [1]. Nuclear is at about 26.5%, while coal is about half that [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=GA https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=GA

bobthepanda 3y ago

This cost premium has always existed. https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices

credit_guy 3y ago
Good point. Could it be that Georgia already generates a lot of power from its existing nuclear reactors, and has been doing that for a few decades?
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  I mean, all that data is also from when California and New York both had operational reactors. In 2013, CA generated 17 out of 200 GW from nuclear. GA generated 32/120 GW. NY generated 44/136GW. So at least in the case of New York, it generated more power from nuclear as a percentage than GA, and had higher electricity prices, so there doesn't seem to be a correlation. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ It probably has more to do with the fact that electricity is deregulated in CA and NY, where implementations were infamously botched: https://truenergy.com/deregulated-energy-states/ https://truenergy.com/deregulated-energy-states/
  - WillPostForFood 3y ago
    This is how your link describes deregulation in California: "very limited and is conducted by a lottery system called DirectAcccess" There was a semi-deregulation in 1996, but it was largely rolled back in 2001. So any price data post data 2001 should be bucketed in regulated.
  - sarchertech 3y ago
    What’s interesting about those numbers is that Georgia generates much more power per person than California or New York. Georgia has a population of 10 million. California is at 40 Million and New York 20 million.
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    Ok, you are right. But the thing still remains: the supposed Vogtle 3/4 boondoggle of gazzilions of dollars of cost overruns did not result in consumers paying more for electricity. Sure, historically they used to pay less than the national average, but they continue to pay less than the national average, and by about the same amount. The cause could be regulation or deregulation, or better geographic position, or whatever. But the consumers are not paying more, after Vogtle 3, am I right?
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      It resulted in the consumers there paying more than they would have had Vogtle 3/4 not been built.
      - credit_guy 3y ago
        Being a counterfactual, your statement is by definition opinion, not fact.
        pfdietz 3y ago
        One can look at the cost of the alternatives and see I'm speaking the truth. Also, demand didn't increase as much as the (likely fraudulent) projections used to justify Vogtle 3/4. All the "nuclear renaissance" nuclear builds aside from Vogtle 3/4 were cancelled because the utilities realized the alternatives were much better economically. V. C. Summer was cancelled after dropping $9B on it. Even with that sunk cost, it still wasn't worth completing. What happened between back then and now is two (well, three) things: fracking crashed the price of natural gas, demand didn't increase as much as utilities said it would, and then (later, after fracking) renewables also became much MUCH cheaper. One can excuse the nuclear industry for not seeing this would happen (or perhaps for not wanting to see that it would happen), but that doesn't change the fact that it did happen, and that the nuclear builds turned out to be economically unjustifiable. Things got so bad for nuclear we were seeing already completed NPPs being shut down because they couldn't even make an operating profit! The other reactor at TMI had been cash flow negative for the last six years it was in operation, for example. In that sort of environment, building a new NPP (which would also have to amortized construction and financing costs) would be totally out of the question economically.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Georgia has some of the largest coal plants in the country. The power company (Georgia Power, part of Southern Company) was allowed to pre-bill customers for the costs of the new plant well over a decade in advance. If you lived in Georgia before the new units came online, you paid to have them built but received no benefit from them. Investors in Southern Company received unwarranted protection from the consequences of poor project implementation and cost overruns on the back of the utility's customers.
- bumby 3y ago
  Your same source has information on the relative proportion of generation [1]. Nuclear is at about 26.5%, while coal is about half that [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=GA https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=GA