America’s last nuclear power project at risk of cancellation

Last U.S. Nuclear Project Faces `Jeopardy’ as Owners Mull Exit, Bloomberg, By Mark Chediak, Margaret Newkirk, and Ari Natter, September 24, 2018, 

• Costs of Southern’s Vogtle project have doubled to $28 billion
•  
  orida utility seeking to cancel contract to buy Vogtle power
  The only nuclear power plant under construction in the U.S. is facing stiff headwinds, as two minority owners are mulling whether to pull out of the $28 billion project led by Southern Co.

  Vogtle’s primary municipal co-owners, Oglethorpe Power Corp. and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, are scheduled to vote Monday whether to move forward with construction on the Vogtle plant in Georgia after Southern’s Georgia Power utility disclosed in August that costs had increased by $2.3 billion.

  As the vote looms, a Florida utility is suing to get out of a contract to buy electricity from the plant. Georgia lawmakers, meanwhile, called this week for a price cap on the project.

  If one of the major parties decides not to continue, that could put the project in serious jeopardy,” said Kit Konolige, an analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.

  The Vogtle decision comes at a critical time for the U.S. nuclear industry. Existing reactors are struggling to compete with cheap natural gas and renewables, and efforts to build new ones have all but dried up. Cost overruns forced Scana Corp. to abandon a half-built project in South Carolina last year, leaving Southern and its partners as the only companies left building reactors in the U.S……….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-21/last-u-s-nuclear-project-faces-jeopardy-as-owners-mull-exit