Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
South CarolinaThe state-owned utility is looking for a private company to revive the project of building two nuclear power plants, which was abandoned eight years ago after incurring losses of more than $9 billion without generating a single watt of power.
Santee Cooper’s board agreed Friday to begin six weeks of talks with Brookfield Asset Management that they hope will lead to an agreement that would allow the private company to build the nuclear plant at its own risk to generate power at the VC Summers site near Jenkinsville, which they can then sell to whoever they want, like energy-intensive data centers.
Santee Cooper said Brookfield has agreed to provide the utility with a portion of the initially generated power. But that and probably a thousand other details will have to be negotiated. In a twist, Brookfield took over the assets of Westinghouse Electric Company, which had to declare bankruptcy due to difficulties building new nuclear reactors.
Utility officials said the settlement offers hope that the state might get something out of the debacle that left four executives jailed or under house arrest for lying to regulators, shareholders, ratepayers and investigators and millions paid for decades for a project that never produced electricity.
“The risk to the ratepayer is zero. The risk to the taxpayer is zero,” said Peter McCoy, chairman of the board of Santee Cooper.
Tom Clements, executive director of the nuclear watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch, said the project still has too many hurdles to overcome for it to be considered a victory.
After eight years in the elements, all of the plant’s equipment and structure, which was built in less than half the time, would need to be carefully inspected before being used. Clements said the permits to build nuclear plants and the licenses to operate them would need to be renewed, possibly from scratch.
“I still believe the cost, technical and regulatory hurdles to completing the project are too great,” Clements said. He said it appeared the deal would allow Brookfield to walk away if it decided it wasn’t feasible.
Santee Cooper heard from 70 bidders and received 15 formal proposals to restart construction of the reactors. Interest in the project has increased as electricity demand in the US increases as artificial intelligence technology develops and data centers grow.
Santee Cooper officials credit President donald trumpAn executive order in May called for the US to quadruple the amount of electricity produced by nuclear plants over the next 25 years, opening the door to a possible deal.
“You have put South Carolina at the center of the resurgence of nuclear energy in the United States,” said Jimmy Staton, CEO of Santee Cooper.
Santee Cooper was a minority partner in what was then South Carolina Electric & Gas when construction of two new nuclear plants began at the VC Summers site in 2013 – about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast. Colombia – where SCE&G was already operating a reactor.
The project was required to be finished in seven years to receive tax credits to keep the project costs from overwhelming the utilities, but it almost immediately finished behind schedule.
Officials lied about problems to prevent money from coming in. Taxpayers and ratepayers faced trouble because of a state law that allowed utilities to recover costs before any electricity was produced.
Two nuclear reactors were built in the same way Georgia The project went $17 billion over budget before it was fully operational in 2023.