The U.K. has an ambitious energy policy agenda, unveiled after the Conference of the Parties-26 in Glasgow last fall, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As outlined by the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the U.K.’s path is to “net zero” greenhouse emissions from the electricity sector by 2050. The targets include 50 gigawatts… More U.K. grid may doom “net zero by 2050”
Atlanta-based Southern Co.’s plagued two-unit, 2,000-MW Vogtle nuclear construction project, already vastly over budget and behind schedule, has suffered another setback, one that could put the cost of the project to over $30 billion and take another six months to resolve. The announcement could add $920 million to the project’s cost. When major Vogtle construction… More More Vogtle delays, even higher costs
It’s the nuclear news story that won’t go away. More delays look in store for the Southern Company’s troubled two-unit, 2,000-MW Vogtle 3-4 construction project. The Georgia Power project to build new, 1,000-MW Westinghouse reactors at an existing site, which began construction in 2009, with a project startup in 2014, could now be pushed back… More Vogtle Déjà Vu: More Schedule Delays?
It’s an all-too-familiar story. Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power has again announced a delay in the long-anticipated, long-delayed, and vastly over budget opening of its two-unit Vogtle nuclear expansion project. Construction on the two-unit, 2,000-MW project, using Westinghouse AP-1000 advanced pressurized water reactors, began in 2009, with an anticipated startup of the first unit in… More More delays (yawn) at the Vogtle nuke project
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… More More problems for Vogtle 3 nuclear startup
Texas is an electrical (among other things) mess. The state features an independent grid operator that is purposefully, and stupidly, unconnected to the rest of the U.S. It has inadequate and unreliable generation, with little flexibility. It has retail rate regulators subservient to the utilities it regulates. Its ideology is autarky, which never works. Texas… More Analysis: Texas is a mess
Fully understanding the details about what went wrong with the Texas power supply system won’t be possible for weeks, and will no doubt involve investigations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its private sector partner, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. But having covered the U.S. electric system as a specialized journalist for over… More Some thoughts about Texas
The sad failure of the V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina appears to be a never-ending tale of woe, intrigue, and crime. In the latest development, the federal and state criminal sentencing of the former CEO of the now defunct investor-owned utility SCANA, Kevin Marsh, originally scheduled for late last year, has been postponed.… More Turmoil continues in aftermath of South Carolina’s nuclear collapse
In the U.S., argues economist and nuclear power advocate Edward Kee, nuclear power plants and competitive electricity markets can’t work together. In a new book, Market Failure: Market-Based Electricity is Killing Nuclear Power, Kee, head of the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group, writes, “The biggest threat faced by nuclear power is from a market approach to… More Are competitive electricity markets and nukes incompatible?
Georgia Power’s troubled two-unit Vogtle nuclear construction project, currently scheduled for completion of the first unit in November of 2021, is unlikely to meet that timeline, according to Engineering News-Record. Testimony filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission by its Vogtle Monitoring Group found, “Since inception of the project in 2009, all [Integrated Project Schedule] iterations… More Vogtle will miss its 2021 service date; Santee Cooper generates more controversy