It ’s prescribed : One of the new towers at the Vogtle power plant has started splitting atoms . The tone brings thetroubled plant in Georgia , which is year behind agenda and billions of dollar over budget , closer to bring home the bacon an enormous amount of carbon - free power to the grid .
The Vogtle task has taken a farsighted and tumultuous route to get to this moment . The industrial plant ’s expansion to add two atomic reactorsgot its first approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009 , with an initial budget of $ 14 billion and a planned starting line date of 2017 . unit 3 and 4 are the first new nuclear reactor to be built in the U.S. in more than 30 years . ( The Watts Bar reactor was mostly built decades before , butconstruction was arrest in the mid-1980sand it sat incomplete for years before being revived in 2007 . )
In the decade - plus since its approving , the Vogtle task has run class over schedule , and its budget hasballooned to over $ 30 billion — more than twice its initial price tag . In 2017 , the class the reactors were supposed to come online but instead sat half - finished , the Public Service Commissionvoted to move ahead with the undertaking , despite its own staff recommending against it . The latest delay came in January , whenvibrations were discovered in the plant ’s cool system — leading to extra charge of $ 15 million per month .
Steam rises from the cooling towers at the Vogtle plant.Photo: John Bazemore (AP)
A lot has changed in the energy landscape painting since the project was approved in 2009 , specially for atomic power . While Vogtle was under construction , a similar nuclear enlargement undertaking in South Carolina was scrapped afteryears of time lag and growing costs . Investigators found that executives at the utility in South Carolina building the plant life had lie to governor to impose pace increases on customers to pay for the plant life and restrict for million of dollars in taxation credits .
Westinghouse , the manufacturer of the reactors at Vogtle and the site in South Carolina , went belly-up as a consequence of the massive cost overruns at both projects — do partially by problemswith the direction the fellowship was attempting to build the newfangled reactor . Meanwhile , contender from lifelike gas and the fall cost of renewables think of that energy from older plant life that still had n’t recuperate a replication on their up - front investment was getting more expensive than alternatives , leadingmany country to sunset their plant life .
The Vogtle project illustrates many of the concerns with building traditional atomic power plants , which are monolithic infrastructure projection that can get bogged down in delays , cost overruns , and regulatory snarl . In particular , some of the monetary value overruns for Vogtle — which now are in the billion of dollar mark — have already been passed on to consumers . It ’s still a question as to who will find fault up the final bank bill . However , carbon - liberal baseload energy like what will be cater by Vogtle is important to the grid and essential to transitioning the country off fossil fuel . When the two young reactors are fully on-line , Vogtle is expected toprovide enough power for 1.6 million homes and businesses .
There are house that local governments are get going to sprain around on attitudes toward nuclear energy . While Vogtle is the only atomic business leader flora under building in the U.S. , the Nuclear Regulatory Commissionapproved the first - ever small modular reactor in January ; a pilot project is expected to come online in Idaho in 2030 . A alinement of metropolis in the first place this monthvoted to go along investing in the pilot projectto meet their white zip motive , despite steep increases in costs . And in California , regulator last twelvemonth in a surprise voteacted to extend the life of the Diablo Canyon industrial plant , which provide one - twenty percent of the Department of State ’s carbon - gratuitous power in 2021 .
EnergyEnergy conversionNuclear powerWestinghouse
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