Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned utility, has begun the process of reviving an abandoned nuclear power project. Brookfield, a private company, protests—a public utility looking to “refresh” its relationship with Brookfield. They have preliminarily agreed to supply electricity from two nuclear plants recently approved to be built at the V.C. Summer site.
Construction on these plants started in 2013. After eight years and more than $9 billion in losses, the project was scrapped without ever producing a single watt of electricity. Santee Cooper joined with South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE&G) to build the two plants, but SCE&G fell into a financial crisis of massive proportions. That leaves millions of South Carolinians now on the hook paying for a project that never materialized.
The V.C. Summer site, about 25 miles northeast of Columbia, S.C., is home to one operational reactor already. Instead, the expansion project was plagued by massive delays from square one, costs that would eventually have grave legal and financial repercussions. Four executives served time or were put under home detention for lying to regulators, investors and prosecutors about the state of the project.
Even Santee Cooper, which had called for bids, drew 70 participants. They skillfully refined those entries down to 15 formal proposals aimed strictly at getting construction moving again. The utility’s CEO, Jimmy Staton, gave credit to federal policies for spurring this new push. He noted that President Donald Trump’s May executive order seeks to double the amount of power generated by nuclear plants over the next 25 years. This transition has opened up some exciting new opportunities to work together with Brookfield.
“You have placed South Carolina in the epicenter of the resurgence of nuclear power in the United States,” – Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper CEO.
The undertaking requires an in-depth review of the project’s current assets and technological apparatuses. These assets have been exposed to the elements for the last eight years. With this additional scrutiny, no resumption of construction should occur without addressing the many adverse impacts of this megaproject. Santee Cooper is pushing hard to have the project done in seven years to lock in important tax credits. In response, skeptics ask if this blindness to reality leads to what is fundamentally a misguided timeline.
Peter McCoy, Chairman of the Santee Cooper Board, emphasized the board’s confidence in this new direction. He claimed that they’ve done a poor job with the risk, but have successfully avoided it.
“The risk to the ratepayer is nil. The risk to the taxpayer is nil,” – Peter McCoy, Santee Cooper Board Chairman.
Despite these caveats and these constant reassurances from industry experts, many remain skeptical about the project’s fiscal feasibility. Tom Clements, the executive director of Savannah River Site Watch raised several possible obstacles. Without effective solutions, these challenges could delay the project’s timely completion.
“I still believe that the cost, technical and regulatory hurdles are too big to lead to completion of the project,” – Tom Clements.
Santee Cooper is still plowing ahead with Brookfield. At the same time, South Carolina has a lot at stake in the future of nuclear energy in the region. The utility’s actions will undoubtedly be scrutinized as it attempts to navigate the complex landscape of regulatory compliance and public trust.
