Good news, surely? Why wouldn’t Dutton be mentioning Vogtle (OK,...

Good news, surely? Why wouldn’t Dutton be mentioning Vogtle (OK, it’s a little hard to pronounce) in his budget reply — rather than Canada?

Well, for one thing, the two new reactors have cost around US$35 billion to construct — that’s around US$20 billion over budget — and were completed seven years late. The final cost makes them the most expensive nuclear power plants in history, and they were only completed because Donald Trump provided $12 billion in loan guarantees to the ailing project.

Preliminary construction began on the two Vogtle reactors in 2009. On that timetable — remembering Australia has no nuclear power regulatory structures or industry expertise to draw on — a Dutton government’s first nuclear power would become available in 2040, assuming building started the day after the election.

But mammoth delays and massive cost blowouts are neither here nor there to the Coalition, remembering that nuclear power is actually all about keeping coal-fired power going, not building any nuclear power stations. The reason Dutton might not want to mention Vogtle is what the enormous cost of the new reactors has done to power prices: cause a permanent 10% increase in electricity bills for consumers across Georgia and beyond. According to the Associated Press:

Regulators in December approved an additional 6% rate increase on Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Vogtle, with the company absorbing $2.6 billion in costs. That’s expected to cost the typical residential customer an additional $8.97 a month in May, on top of the $5.42 increase that took effect when Unit 3 began operating.

That means consumers have faced a total 9.6% increase in electricity costs to pay for the new reactors.

That’s not modelling or estimates — that’s cold hard cash that American consumers are having to fork out, every quarter, forever, to pay for nuclear power.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/05/20/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-proposal-energy-bills-usa/