6 days ago
South Carolina considers reviving failed $9B nuclear project
With growing demand for carbon-free, around-the-clock energy, more and more utilities, politicians and developers are looking toward nuclear power as a potential solution. The trouble is, for decades, U.S. nuclear development has been rare, slow and exceedingly expensive
And the list of failed projects greatly outnumbers the completed nuclear reactors in the past 30 years.
In South Carolina, Virgil C. Summer is the most recent and dramatic of such failures. Efforts to build two new nuclear reactors at the site, about an hour and a half south of Charlotte, were canceled in 2017 after massive cost overruns and a series of construction delays.
In the end, the reactors were left less than half complete, the developer, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy, executives from South Carolina Gas and Electric, as well as Westinghouse, were indicted on fraud charges and ratepayers were stuck with a $9 billion bill.
They're still paying on their energy bills today.
Now, the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council is advocating for the project to get a second look, potentially becoming the first and second nuclear reactors to come online since the completion of Georgia's Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors.
Why try again?
While some may see V.C. Summer as a lost cause, Jim Little sees a site ripe for a second chance.
As the industry representative of the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council, he and Chairman Rick Lee visited the plant last fall to get a better understanding of where things left off when the project was canceled seven years ago. Instead of seeing the decaying ruins of a failed project, Little said he was pleasantly surprised to see most of the construction well-preserved.
'It looked like work had stopped a few months ago, not seven years ago,' he said.
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According to Little, any new effort to build the two new reactors still had a chance of picking up where the last efforts left off. In a report to the governor, the council endorsed an inspection and analysis of the cost and construction schedule to complete VC Summer once and for all.
Optimistically, Little believes a VC Summer project that gets permitted and off the ground quickly could be operational in the next five years, which would be impossible for any nuclear reactor construction starting from scratch.
'If this can be done successfully, everything's upside,' Little said.
For Tom Ervin, a former Public Service Commissioner, who regulates South Carolina's utilities and works to set energy rates, that's a big 'if.'
'It's a big mistake,' he said. 'It's going to cost time, delays and much higher utility rates for all utility customers, small businesses, residents and even large manufacturers are going to struggle with these new rates.'
Ervin points to the recent commissioning of Vogtle 3 and 4, which have led to massive rate increases in Georgia to cover the project's more than $35 billion budget, a far cry from the $14 billion initially proposed in 2009.
With South Carolina ratepayers already stuck with a $9 billion bill from the failed VC project, Ervin believes they shouldn't be on the hook for another cent.
'Nuclear construction is so expensive and so complex,' he said. 'It's not a good option for us.'
Would things be different this time?
The nuclear picture in the United States has changed since 2017.
While Vogtle 3 and 4 faced numerous delays and massive budget overruns, the reactors were eventually completed and are providing 1.1 GW of around-the-clock clean energy each. The reactors at V.C. Summer are the exact same design, the AP 1000, so Little said it stands to reason that what's been done once can be done again.
'You can take advantage of all the lessons learned, the experience, the talent and the solutions on Vogtle and simply apply them to Virgil Summer,' he said.
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According to Sola Talabi, president of Pittsburgh Technical and a former risk manager with Westinghouse's AP 1000 projects, the best way to avoid the same costly mistakes is to plan for them from the beginning.
'When projects are being executed, it's almost like driving a car, and the driver has to be fully engaged, with their hands on the steering wheel, with their eyes on the road,' he said. 'That's not the time to learn about how the car works or, you know, trying to figure out where you're going, right?'
When Vogtle and V.C. Summer were under construction, they were first-of-a-kind projects in the United States, Talabi explained. Their construction teams had to face and adjust to first-of-a-kind challenges in real time without the benefit of a road map. For any new AP 1000 construction, crews should be informed of potential delays and challenges up front so they know how to recognize and respond to them as quickly as possible, rather than relearning the lessons of the first crews in real time.
Talabi also believes time is of the essence. With the Vogtle project complete in 2024, every year that projects like V.C. Summer wait, the harder it will be to put the practical knowledge base of the Vogtle team to use.
'There's attrition of that knowledge. You have people retiring every day,' he said. 'Then you have potentially more competition for the available resources, because we expect that there would be, in the coming years, a significant increase in nuclear power plant construction, and there'll be competition for these resources.'
Talabi expects there will be more risk for the 'first mover' after Vogtle, but with so many other utilities across the country eyeing potential nuclear projects, he said late movers may suffer delays due to a shortage of qualified workers already busy on other projects.
'A little bit of activity [in nuclear] has started, but again, in a few years, in about two years, I'd expect there'd be significantly more,' he said.
If not nuclear, then what?
Nuclear is not the only way to provide large amounts of around-the-clock power or decarbonize the energy grid.
Ervin advocates for more investment in solar plus battery storage to balance out the intermittency inherent in renewable energy. He said that's the fastest way to get new power online, and for those skeptical of the limitations of renewable energy, he said the answer is natural gas, not nuclear.
'If you want to have power generation in the next decade or so, what we need to do is look at alternatives that are much less costly,' he said. 'Natural gas plants are also cheaper to build and take less time to build, and so most utilities around the country are turning to gas plants for short-term solution, not nuclear.'
Little argues, while there are other options, none are going to give you the output and reliability that nuclear can, especially given South Carolina's historic reliance on nuclear power.
What's next?
Santee Cooper, which owns part of the V.C. Summer site, put out a request for proposals to complete construction on the two new nuclear reactors and in a release, the utility announced it got a 'strong response.'
A spokesperson would not clarify how many bids Santee Cooper received. The utility will spend the next nine to 18 months reviewing those bids.
Santee Cooper has said it does not want to own or operate the new V.C. Summer reactors should they come online.
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Should a company come in to get the project restarted, they would need to obtain new federal permits and licensing through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as the project's former permits were terminated at the time of cancellation. Inspectors with the NRC would also have to come out to the site and determine how much of the former project is build-ready and what work would need to be redone.
Little sees these hurdles as minor obstacles any responsible project manager could overcome. He believes that with enough interest from large customers like data centers, there should be enough capital investment to shield South Carolina ratepayers from the financial burden they faced last time.
More importantly, Little believes this project could prove the United States can build nuclear again.
'Can America lead? Everybody's saying, 'has America lost its leadership in nuclear power?'' He said. 'This isn't just about a project. It's about a second chance.'
Should the project fail again, however, Ervin believes that should be the final nail in the coffin for the industry.
'We had a really horrific experience in South Carolina, which I hope will never be repeated anywhere else,' he said. 'To start from scratch in this kind of environment is just not it's not a wise decision at all.'
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