More problems have surfaced at Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 nuclear construction project, casting further doubt on the startup date for the badly behind schedule and massively over budget project. The unit is one of two the Southern Company utility is building at its existing Vogtle nuclear station, with Unit 4 supposed to follow soon after Unit 3, which has been in hot testing (without nuclear fuel).
Today (June 21), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced a “special inspection” to
identify “what has led to construction remediation work for the electrical cable raceway system at Unit 3.” The NRC said its inspection team “will focus on the electrical cable raceway system, consisting primarily of conduits and cable trays designed to route and support the cables needed to ensure safety-related equipment is powered to perform its safety functions. Electrical cable raceway systems for commercial nuclear power plants are routed and designed to prevent a single event from disabling redundant safety-related equipment.”
The NRC said it “will not authorize the licensee to load fuel and operate Vogtle Unit 3 until construction is complete and they have satisfied the standards identified in their combined license. The inspection team will document its findings and conclusions in a public report to be issued within 45 days of the end of the review.”
In May, Georgia Power announced delays in in the startup that would put commercial operation off from November 2021 into 2022. In early June, according to a report in Engineering News Record, the state public service commission and the independent monitor of the Vogtle project said most recent delays could add another 7-9 months for the startup of the plant that began construction in 2009. “It is our opinion that Unit 3 COD (commercial operation date) will be significantly later than the Jan. 18, 2022 Unit 3 COD forecast by the company,” the outside observers said.
The additional delays could add another $2 billion or more to the cost of the project, already at more than $24 billion. Under an order from the Georgia PSC, the company can’t recover additional costs over those the regulators have already approved. Nevertheless, Georgia Power this week said it will seek PSC approval for a $235 million rate increase, or about $4/month for the average customer, to cover the additional costs, according to the Associate Press. The company wants PSC “pre-approval” of the rate increase once the unit becomes commercial, a date in serious doubt.
The AP reported, “Ultimately, the five elected Republican commissioners will decide what costs Georgia Power can charge for. However, the current rate proposal covers $2.38 billion in costs that commissioners in 2017 approved as prudently spent. The proposal is actually a rate increase of $369 million, but it’s being offset by a $134 million reduction in the separate rate that the utility is charging to cover construction costs and financing.”
What’s the significance of the NRC’s move for a special inspection? Edwin Lyman, who leads the Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power program, told The Quad Report, “It seems to be related to just one part of the set of problems that have led to the additional delays. It’s astonishing that the lessons from the MOX plant and V.C. Summer apparently have not been learned at Vogtle. But where were the NRC inspectors when all these out-of-spec cables were being installed?”
–Kennedy Maize
Update General Fusion, which is planning a large demonstration project in the U.K., has clarified what liquid metal heat shield they will be using in the fusion reactor. The Quad Report speculated that the metal could be lithium. In an email, Grace Peach of the Canadian company said, “the vessel will have a liquid lithium liner. However, in our commercial power plants the metal liner will be a mix of liquid lead and lithium.”