by TOM DAVIS
With the assistance of officials at Santee Cooper, Dominion Energy, the South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council (NAC) and large energy users like Google, Nucor Steel, Century Aluminum, and Milliken & Company, I have spent the past few months putting together a framework within which businesses in the private sector can submit bids to complete the two unfinished nuclear reactors (Unit 2 and 3) at the V. C. Summer site in Fairfield County.
The result of these efforts was the Joint Resolution I filed in the South Carolina Senate last Wednesday, the text of which is accessible HERE.
In this Joint Resolution, I explained in granular detail why something considered by Santee Cooper and SCE&G to be economically infeasible in 2017 (after it had spent $9 billion!) may in fact be feasible today. Here is how I summarized that potential feasibility, and how to best determine if it is feasible:
Whereas, the willingness of large energy off-takers to explore innovative ways of meeting their energy demands, the availability of new federal incentives to assist with the construction of nuclear projects, the successful completion of AP1000 nuclear reactors and the immediate availability of completed engineering drawings, and the reports of the condition of the assets on site at Units 2 and 3 suggest completion of one or both of those units may now be feasible, and a request for proposal would be a way to identify and assess sources of serious interest in the private sector to complete one or both of those units or to explore another solution.
Santee Cooper, one of the owners of Units 2 and 3, is putting together the Request for Proposal described in the Joint Resolution. Dominion Energy, the other owner of the units, agrees with this approach. Only by issuing an RFP can it be determined if something seemingly feasible in theory will result in private companies in fact submitting bids that puts their capital and borrowing capacity on the line to complete the construction.
What is contemplated here is the private sector completely assuming the risk of completing the two nuclear units, one of which is already 48 percent complete. If we can get this done, not only will 2,200 megawatts of carbon-free generation be created for our state, but billions of previously invested V. C. Summer dollars that are now embedded in the ratepayer base of Santee Cooper and Dominion Energy customers can be removed, thus lowering their electricity bills.
BANNER VIA: HIGH FLYER
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Tom Davis represents Beaufort and Jasper counties in the South Carolina Senate.
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5 comments
“What is contemplated here is the private sector completely assuming the risk of completing the two nuclear units, one of which is already 48 percent complete.” All that means for sure is that the government (and by extension, the taxpayers) is not going to directly assume the risk of the project. The “private sector” can mean the privately owned general contractor and its subs. It can also mean the rate payers. It can also be a mix of the two. While Sen. Davis appears to be trying to say that the contractor is the one who assumes the risk, the problem is that the word “risk” doesn’t even appear in the joint resolution, nor any language that would demonstrate an intention to only pursue a path that placed the risk of completion on the contractor and not the taxpayers and rate payers. It would be great if there was a way to get two new reactors online – don’t get me wrong. But a VERY hard lesson was learned the last time, and I don’t see the type of adamant language that needs to be in place to ensure SC doesn’t get a second black eye out of this. We also need to keep in mind that getting a contractor who is third party bonded to complete the job, given the prior history, is going to be extremely difficult.
Why do this? Are we not already creating enough nuclear waste that will be deadly for 100,000+ years? I mean, we cannot guarantee that it will be adequately contained for 100 years, so how will this impact another four generations?
Why pursue nuclear? For one thing the energy density is vastly greater than anything else, and while the waste has to be contained in special places via special methods, a well-built nuclear plant is overall the best balance of abundant, resilient clean energy with a much longer useful life than things like wind and solar, which are also very vulnerable to severe adverse weather. One hard direct hit hailstorm will completely take a solar farm offline. Wind turbines have at best a useful life of 20 years before they have to be replaced, and the massive blades on them are 0% recyclable. Hydro is generally OK but it affects tens of thousands of acres of land to create the reservoir needed to run their turbines.
I think Davis has been hitting the bowl a little more. Tax payers and ratepayers have already been hung out to dry in the sum of BILLIONS of dollars. Now you want us to take up the project again??? Typical out of touch legislators. Your corporate welfare is bringing all these megawatt consuming corporations. You are creating the problems.
Sure! Companies that want to bankrupt themselves can go ahead and bid.
Hey! What about the Trump Organization? Trump has bankrupted his company six times. Maybe he’s willing to try for a seventh.