CPS knew of higher STP cost year ago

[bananas]

Source: San Antonio Express-News

CPS Energy knew a year ago that contractor Toshiba Inc. wanted at least $4 billion more than San Antonio was willing to pay for the nuclear expansion, according to several sources close to the deal.

Despite this, utility officials used a much lower figure as they pitched the project at public meetings during the summer, arguing that nuclear was the most cost-effective way for San Antonio to meet its future energy needs.

They took the same message to elected officials who were to vote on a $400 million bond issue and rate increases to finance the multibillion-dollar expansion of the South Texas Project near Bay City.

<snip>

“That means at the district meetings and the public forums they held all summer, CPS was lying to the public,” said Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition, an Austin-based environmental advocacy group. “This is a massive deception.”

<snip>

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/livinggreensa/70733907.html

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Posted in the EE forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x218149

[mbperrin]

1. Anyone who expects anything but lies and more lies from the nuclear industry

needs to get lined up. There is no Santa, either.

[bertman]

2. From what you're saying, mbperrin, I'm guessing I should give up hope for the Easter bunny too.

[mbperrin]

10. I had planned on breaking that a bit more gently, but yeah.

Tooth fairy, too.

Let me give you an example. 30 miles from here in Andrews, Texas, Waste Control Specialists proposed a dump for "low-level" radioactive waste, such as hospital gowns, used film, and so on. But the application they filed didn't match that. Those of use who pointed it out were told that we didn't understand how to read documents.

Then the company asked for and got, a blanket from the state of Texas. If anything goes wrong with the dump, the taxpayers of Texas, not WCS, are responsible for any cleanup and other liabilities. Those of us who asked why low-level medical waste could ever do so were told to shut up, because this company was going to create 10 or 12 jobs running forklifts.

Then the company asked the voters of Andrews to pass a bond issue for $70 million and then loan the company the money to build the thing, because Andrews' credit rating was excellent, and WCS, not so much. Collateral for the loan? The dump. It passed by 3 votes with those of us screaming about a Bond Issue for Billionaires demonized by locals.

The issue passed, the dump is built, and now they are taking waste from the Hanford site in Washington state, and they just contracted to take hundreds of thousands of tons of GE's Hudson River waste. They are actively seeking contracts for rods stored at reactors around the world now.

Now we are told that no lies were told, because that was in the original application all along, and besides, there are a couple of dozen jobs out there. The best part? This whole thing sits on top of the water supply for my town. All maps until 2006 showed my aquifer as under the dump, until the company paid an area university to redraw it so that the water just misses the dump.

The owners of the dump live in Dallas, big time nuclear waste is being stored on top of my drinking water, separated by a piece of black plastic, the local taxpayers are on the hook for payments that built it, and the state of Texas has the liability for anything that goes wrong.

That's my experience with the nuclear folks.

I'm thinking about speaking to a leprechaun about it.

[ooglymoogly]

3. Who cares anymore, we live in a lawless country for

the good ol' boys. For the rest it's selective enforcement as in Martha Stewart and whoever the gubment wants to make an example of or anyone causing a fuss.

[dysfunctional press]

4. i never realized that the chicago public schools bought that much fuel additive...

:shrug:

[pscot]

5. WHOOPS

K&R

[DCKit]

6. "In for a penny, in for a pound"?

If it looks too good to be true....

[Stumbler]

7. Wait a sec.. So the nuclear energy industry lied to us? Again? Say it ain't so!

[kristopher]

8. This isn't a surprise - already shown in an independent analysis from 2008

Assessing Nuclear Plant Capital Costs for the Two Proposed NRG Reactors at the South Texas Project Site

Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.1

March 24, 2008
A. Main Findings and Recommendations

NRG, a merchant electricity generating company, proposes to build two new nuclear power
reactors, totaling 2,700 megawatts at the South Texas Project site near Bay City, Texas. NRG
owns a part of the two units that already exist at that site. CPS Energy, San Antonio’s electricity
and gas municipal utility, which owns a 40 percent share of the two existing units proposes to
purchase a 40 percent share of the proposed new reactors. This analysis is a preliminary report
on the likely capital costs of the two reactors, as best they can be determined at the present time.
It also contains some preliminary observations regarding efficiency and distributed renewable
energy sources to put the CPS decision that might be made regarding investment in the NRG
plant into context.

Central conclusion and recommendation

The overall finding of this report is that NRG’s range of $6 billion to $7 billion is obsolete.
The best available estimates indicate that capital costs would likely be about a factor of two
or more higher, even without taking into account the potential for real cost escalations
during construction, delays, and other risks. The risks to CPS, as a municipal utility and to
its ratepayers as well as to the taxpayers of San Antonio are great. Due diligence demands
that CPS participation in the project should not be pursued until an independent, detailed
study with current cost estimates of the plants and alternatives to it are complete and have
been publicly disclosed and discussed.


1 Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and Fellow of the American
Physical Society.

[sonias]

9. CPS has gone rogue

Even though they answer to the San Antonio city council and the San Antonio citizens, they have their own little "Enron" attitude.

Even the partner in the expansion deal for the nuke units thinks the project is not affordable

San Antonio Express 11/20/09
CPS partner: Nuclear deal costs too high for S.A.
(snip)
"We would expect ... the price estimate that Toshiba will come back with may be outside the affordability range for their ratepayers," Steve Winn, CEO of the NRG-owned Nuclear Innovation North America, said at a financial analysts' meeting in Houston.

It's time for the CPS board to go.

San Antonio Express 11/20/09
The high price of a deal gone bad: Rebuilding CPS leadership
(snip)
It's come to this: The simple truth withheld from the community by CPS Energy was revealed last week by NRG Energy executives to a Houston gathering of financial analysts: San Antonio can't afford the high price of expanding the South Texas Project nuclear facility.

Not that we need another example, but once again Wall Street enjoys the advantage over Main Street. Ratepayers don't have a need to know, but let's not deny institutional investors a little inside information.

(snip)
Castro said he wants the board to make a recommendation to CEO Milton Lee, who handed over day-to-day operations to Bartley in 2007, about what should be done in the wake of the investigation's findings.

(snip)

Castro said he would press to make the investigation's findings public. Only a full airing of events will help restore the public's confidence in CPS Energy, he said.

The other concern besides the cost issue on this nuke expansion is water. Nukes use huge amounts of water and water is something that is getting to be a very scarce resource in Texas. Certainly not a resource you should squander.

Oh and of course those potential radiation leaks - big problem.

This one just happened on Sunday (yesterday).
Radiation leak investigated at Three Mile Island But of course the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) never sees a problem.

Nothing to see here pay no attention to the leak. Go about your business - move on. :eyes:


Sonia

[hobbit709]

11. Same bullshit, new year

Just like they told us electricity would be too cheap to meter when Carole ManyNames sold the nuke to Austin back when

[sonias]

12. Nuclear Grandma

We're never going to forget Carol's push for nuclear.

The good thing for us in Austin is that at least the city council voted not to join the nuke expansion. We're still stuck owning the portion we own, but we aren't buying anymore of that radioactive crap.

Hope San Antonio comes to their senses and dumps the plans to expand too.

Sonia