The first suggestion of a federal rescue for Plant Vogtle

[thackney]

The first suggestion of a federal rescue for Plant Vogtle
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/04/26/inside-the-envelope-was-the-first-suggestion-of-a-federal-rescue-for-plant-vogtle/

...So we’re talking federal bailout? “I know that Rick Perry and Donald Trump have significant authority, particularly over how the federal loan guarantee is structured,” Echols said carefully. ”At this point, I’m open to seeing them do whatever they have to do in order to move the project forward and protect Georgia ratepayers.”

A federal solution, of course, would protect Georgia ratepayers, and utility stockholders. But not taxpayers.

Welcome to what may become the most volatile issue of the 2018 campaign for governor, lieutenant governor, Congress, the state Legislature, and perhaps dogcatcher. Two of five members of the state PSC are up for election, too. Curiously, Echols is not one of them.

The size of the debacle has yet to be determined. Westinghouse Electric Co., the mega-contractor that had been building the reactors for a utility consortium led by Georgia Power, declared bankruptcy in March. Georgia Power has taken control of the project, but a 30-day interim agreement twixt the utility and Westinghouse, keeping the project alive and thousands of workers on the site in paychecks, is set to expire Friday.

We’re told that the agreement is likely to be extended for a few more weeks. Ultimately, Westinghouse could abandon the project, or sharply curtail its role.

Yes, certain financial guarantees were agreed to last year by Toshiba, Westinghouse’s Japan-based parent company. But there is some doubt that Toshiba itself will be able to survive Westinghouse’s collapse.

Regardless, the overwhelming odds are that Georgia Power will soon go before the five members of the PSC with a “cost to complete” report, with itself as the new chief contractor. And the utility commission will have to determine whether to fish or cut bait on those two nuclear reactors....

[thackney]

GA Power And Westinghouse Extend Temp Vogtle Nuclear Plant Construction Agreement Through May 12
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2017/04/29/ga-power-and-westinghouse-extend-temp-nuclear-plant-construction-agreement-through-may-12/#5667528f1189

Late Friday evening, Georgia Power issued a terse press release. Thousands of people who have been tensely anticipating a crucial decision regarding the fate of the Plant Vogtle expansion project cannot stop worrying yet. We will now mark our calendars for May 12 as the next deadline for announcing a decision about whether the massive project will be continued through completion.

During the wait, Georgia Power employees will continue their efforts to produce a detailed project schedule and a credible cost-to-complete estimate that can pass muster with its partner companies (Oglethorpe Power, MEAG and Dalton Utilities) and the Georgia Public Service Commission. While planning, budgeting and accountability negotiations continue, skilled workers – like the ones pictured above – will continue pressing forward.

Westinghouse will continue providing design, engineering and procurement services for Southern Nuclear while that company is assuming control over management of the enormous project.

Southern Nuclear might want to assume procurement responsibilities as quickly as possible. As a result of its March 29 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Westinghouse's material, component and services vendors are rightfully concerned about whether or not they will be paid in full.

Some have already asked the company to return products that have not yet been used or installed. As often happens when multibillion dollar companies seek protection from the bankruptcy courts, there is a long line of large, medium and small companies whose invoices for already-delivered products and services will not be paid without court approval....

[Hondo69]

I'm assuming Plant Vogtle is in the Russian state of Georgia and they plan on using Hillary's uranium, but the article wasn't completely clear on this.

[thackney]

I'm assuming Plant Vogtle is in the Russian state of Georgia and they plan on using Hillary's uranium, but the article wasn't completely clear on this.

https://www.georgiapower.com/about-energy/energy-sources/nuclear/overview.cshtml

The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, also known as Plant Vogtle, is a 2-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia, in the southeastern United States.

[LateForLunch]

https://www.georgiapower.com/about-energy/energy-sources/nuclear/overview.cshtml

The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, also known as Plant Vogtle, is a 2-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia, in the southeastern United States.

I  think  (hope) he was kidding.

I have a friend who lives in Georgia and is active in politics there. I'll ask him if he has any impressions of how the project will fare or if he favors it (from a personal perspective).

Since DJT ended the shut-down of the nuclear waste storage industry in the U.S. that the Eightball Obama began (in his madness) we can now expect some realistic movement in that industry (at least until another radical extremist ecoparanoid is elected president).

Power plants are not like bullet trains. They actually make money eventually - they don't just suck it down into a bottomless hole filled with pork and crony capitalist payouts to corrupt corporate entities.

Meanwhile looking at Mexifornia, the Socialist State government has all but shut down nuclear power through regulatory fascism. The last plant in southern California (San Onofre) is due to close soon because the state has made it too expensive to stay in business through the power of the governor and the legislature. 

[LateForLunch]

Update, communicated with my friend in Georgia. He is of the opinion that the venture is a "Charlie Foxtrot".

IOW, it is a Hobson's Choice without an acceptable option. Each option will be inevitably very costly and unsuccessful. So he is inclined to come down on the side of less action rather than more i.e., to cut one's losses, abandon the project and move on.

[thackney]

Update, communicated with my friend in Georgia. He is of the opinion that the venture is a "Charlie Foxtrot".

IOW, it is a Hobson's Choice without an acceptable option. Each option will be inevitably very costly and unsuccessful. So he is inclined to come down on the side of less action rather than more i.e., to cut one's losses, abandon the project and move on.

Ouch

[Fishrrman]

Nuclear power generation is all-but dead in the Western world.

Fukushima killed it.

Probably won't be coming back much in our lifetimes.

[Hondo69]

We've been working with nuclear power for decades, we pretty much have all the basics down to a T.  We know how to make them safe, they are unusually efficient, and government screws them up 100% of the time.

Like most things energy related the problem is not with energy itself - the people involved create the problem.  Apparently there is no limit to our ignorance as human beings.

These types of things fall into a predictable pattern.  If they say the cost is going to be $ 1 billion you can triple that estimate at least.  And when things start to get off track it's because one or more entities is making a power play, pardon the pun.  Instead of working in unison to achieve a common goal some entity or another is lurking in the weeds to scuttle the whole damned thing.  It only takes one.

When the post mortem is conducted it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that some group sabotaged the whole project hoping to swoop in after the fact and pick up the pieces on the cheap.  Yet these things have a tendency to devolve into such a steaming pile that the pieces aren't worth picking up.

[LateForLunch]

We've been working with nuclear power for decades, we pretty much have all the basics down to a T.  We know how to make them safe, they are unusually efficient, and government screws them up 100% of the time.

Like most things energy related the problem is not with energy itself - the people involved create the problem.  Apparently there is no limit to our ignorance as human beings.

These types of things fall into a predictable pattern.  If they say the cost is going to be $ 1 billion you can triple that estimate at least.  And when things start to get off track it's because one or more entities is making a power play, pardon the pun.  Instead of working in unison to achieve a common goal some entity or another is lurking in the weeds to scuttle the whole damned thing.  It only takes one.

When the post mortem is conducted it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that some group sabotaged the whole project hoping to swoop in after the fact and pick up the pieces on the cheap.  Yet these things have a tendency to devolve into such a steaming pile that the pieces aren't worth picking up.

Now you are verging on the territory explored by GI Gurdjieff. He believed that the reason Humanity is so screwed up is that we lack a predominately sane population. He defines sanity as being capable of self-direction without the distractions of the false ego leading us astray. He believed that most people spend their lives in a state of "waking sleep" (total identification with their ego) more similar to sleep walkers than to truly self-aware, self directed beings.

He postulated that until Humanity could become a race more populated by people with genuine consciousness undiluted by the illusions of false ego, we would be cursed with all of our present ills.

He likened our attempts to guide our destiny in our current condition, to sleep-walkers trying to build a complex suspension bridge across an abyss.

I'm not sure that I agree totally with his cynicism, but there is something to what he said. The cognitive dissonance factor in our world seems to be increasing - along with the population of people to whom I have great difficulty relating because they seem to be guided in so much of their judgments and decisions by feelings rather than well-considered, rational thought.

That goes triple for so-called "leaders" whose obsessive preoccupation with superfluous materiality and the short-term effects (rewards) of their actions (as opposed to their long-term value) is an onerous thing in my daily awareness.

[Sanguine]

The article doesn't make it clear why I would want to pay money to bail them out.

[Hondo69]

Now you are verging on the territory explored by GI Gurdjieff. He believed that the reason Humanity is so screwed up is that we lack a predominately sane population. He defines sanity as being capable of self-direction without the distractions of the false ego leading us astray. ...

Some very interesting points.  His theory goes a long way towards addressing some age-old questions which puzzle us all. 

Why do people prefer slavery?  The vast majority of mankind's history is one of slavery and there's no shortage of people in the world today in essentially the same boat.  How many people prefer Sharia Law today over more open and free societal structures?  Why do people keep voting in the same old leaders and expecting different results?

If Morgan Freeman can explain quantum mechanics in Through The Wormhole maybe he can dial up a few other answers about things we can actually see and touch.

[LateForLunch]

Some very interesting points.  His theory goes a long way towards addressing some age-old questions which puzzle us all. 

Why do people prefer slavery?  The vast majority of mankind's history is one of slavery and there's no shortage of people in the world today in essentially the same boat.  How many people prefer Sharia Law today over more open and free societal structures?  Why do people keep voting in the same old leaders and expecting different results?

If Morgan Freeman can explain quantum mechanics in Through The Wormhole maybe he can dial up a few other answers about things we can actually see and touch.

Maybe best pursued on another thread, since this is fairly far off-topic.

The essential problem with reality is that it's a matter of PERCEPTION of reality. What people perceive to be the truth becomes the truth for them. Perception is shaped by a lot of things other than human senses - to a large degree, we perceive what we expect to and what we want.

Wants derive from attitudes and those are not consciously chosen, but emanate almost purely from the unconscious. People make ten thousand choices every day based upon their perceptions. How many of those perceptions are unconsciously altered and how many are  genuinely representative of reality? How many are objectively described and integrated into awareness, and how many distorted by emotional bias, fear, desire, hope, anguish, expectation, aversion or anticipation? Therein lies the plight of humanity. We are often unaware of how far our perceptions of reality deviate from correct objective perception.

Gurdjieff said that in many ways, the mystic path is to return to the state of the small child and to learn to perceive only what is actually, really there and nothing more.