A decade ago, there were two large nuclear power plant construction projects ongoing in the US. There was the Vogtle 3 & 4 project in Georgia, and the V. C. Summer 2 & 3 project in South Carolina. Vogtle 3 and 4 were finished and are operating today, but Summer 2 & 3 stopped construction in 2017, in large part because of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Westinghouse.
Now, Santee Cooper, the owner the Summer site, is asking for proposals from interested parties to complete the project.
From the article: The company has launched a process seeking proposals to acquire and complete, or propose alternatives, for the two partially constructed generating units. Parties that are “interested in acquiring the project and related assets, and potentially completing one or both units or pursuing alternative uses of the assets” have until 5 May to respond to a Request for Proposal being conducted on behalf of Santee Cooper by Centerview Partners LLC.
This is no easy project to complete. It would cost about $20 billion for both units. It would need Westinghouse and Bechtel to finish building the 2 units and some other company to operate the units. Will Trump’s DOE make a $12 billion loan guarantee like Vogtle 3&4 got from DOE?
Fossil fuel companies do not like nuclear energy and will try to persuade Trump to do nothing to help.
There appear to be interested buyers. The sale may go forward, if the terms are good for both sides.
From the link: MONCKS CORNER, S.C. – Santee Cooper has received a robust response to its initial request for expressions of interest related to the two partially constructed generating units at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station. The process was launched on Jan. 22 to gauge interest by others in acquiring and completing the units or proposing other alternatives.
Entities submitting proposals represent leading construction, financial, utility, and technology firms from around the world.
“Santee Cooper is pleased with the level of response by industry leaders to this initial step in what will be a deliberate process related to the future of these two units,” said Jimmy Staton, President and CEO. “The depth and breadth of experience represented by the responding entities is encouraging, and we are committed to giving the review of responses the level of seriousness that it needs and deserves.”
These units are only 50% built. That means the cost of buying them will be at least $5 billion. And to finish the construction and startup will be at least another $15 billion.
I am curious why Southern California Edison does not want to sell SONGS 2&3 which are built, and only need to removed the failed steam generators and installed new steam generators.
San Onofre is deader than the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. Unit 1 was torn down years ago to make room for the spent fuel dry cask storage pad. Units 2 and 3 are mostly demolished, with only the containment buildings and a few other structures still standing. Those will probably come down in the next few years. But the turbine buildings are completely gone, as well as the control building, diesel generators, and most everything else.
Latest image from Google Earth…
I suspect Southern California Edison will keep the switchyard in place, as it provides an important interconnection point between San Diego and Orange counties.
Using the distance measurement tool in Google Maps, SONGS 2&3 took up a footprint of about 1300 ft by 477 ft. This calculates to 14.24 acres. Let’s say 15 acres in area.
Google also tells me that an acre of utility-scale solar panels can generate between 394 and 447 MWh per year. Let’s be generous and say 500 MWh per year for southern California. (This is along the coast, and it will be cloudy much of the time, particularly this time of year. The locals call it “June Gloom”, since it is often cloudy in May and June.)
(500 MWh per year per acre) x (15 acres) = 7500 MWh per year.
San Onofre 2 & 3 were both 1100 MWe Combustion Engineering PWRs. At an industry average 90% capacity factor, SONGS could produce…
(2) x (1100 MW) x (24) x (365) x (0.9) = 17,344,800 MWh per year.
17.3 million MWh for nuclear versus 7500 for solar panels. If you include batteries, the solar output goes down to about 6400 MWh, since there is at least a 15% loss when batteries are involved.
When San Onofre 2&3 shut down, CO2 emissions went up in California. For the Powers That Be in California, it was more important to force the shutdown of two nuclear plants than any concern about CO2 or climate change. Yes, Southern California Edison bought some bad steam generators from Mitsubishi, but the generators were under warranty and could have been replaced with properly designed boilers with less damaging steam velocities in the tube bundles.
Why didn’t you consider the large open lands 10 to 50 miles east of the Mesa Property in your calculations? Lots of open space on the Camp Pendleton army base.
Why didn’t you calculate the battery facility use of the existing electrical facilities?
It wasn’t meaningless. It illustrated how solar power (as well as wind power) are relatively energy diffuse. They require a large amount of land area per megawatt of power. Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are relatively energy dense, needing only a small amount of land for the same amount of power.
The SONGS Mesa was the training and warehouse facility. It was not part of the actual power plant. All of the land is owned by the government and is part of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base (not Army). Southern California Edison leases the land. I suspect the Marines will take back the Mesa area at some point.
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Conservationists in Germany are incensed as 120,000 trees in an ancient forest have started to be felled in order to make way for a wind farm.
The forest in Sababurg, Reinhardswald, which is in the central German state of Hesse, is said to be an inspiration for the Brothers Grimm mythical tales, but now it’s being destroyed to facilitate the country’s latest green energy project.
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Back in the 1970s, Joni Mitchell sang in a song.. “They paved paradise, to put up a parking lot..”
An updated version could be.. “They paved paradise, to put up a solar farm.”
There is not need to pave under solar panels. It provides good shade for animals, humans and cars. It does well on roof tops of homes, commercial buildings, industrial buildings, schools, hospitals, and many other places. Mojave desert near San Onofre is a good place for solar panels.
Why is a desert a good place for solar panels…other than being sort of useless for much else that humans desire? Sunny and cool is better for solar panels
More progress toward finishing these incomplete projects…
The board of directors of South Carolina’s state-owned utility Santee Cooper voted today to approve the proposal from Brookfield Asset Management to complete two new AP1000 power reactors at the V.C. Summer site in Jenkinsville, S.C.
Brookfield Asset Management won the bid to restart construction on the Summer-2 and -3 units. The proposal will not require funding from rate payers and will bring an additional 2,200 MWe to the region.
This effort would be a restart of a failed project that was started in 2013 by Santee Cooper and the now defunct South Carolina Electric & Gas Company. But due to delays and cost overruns–costing the utilities and rate payers $9 billion–it was cancelled in 2017.
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In other recent news, the NRC has approved the Environmental Impact Statement for TerraPower’s sodium cooled reactor in western Wyoming. This is Bill Gates’ nuclear power company. The plant will be built near an existing coal plant, which is owned by one of Warren Buffett’s companies.
Earlier this year, they started construction on some of the support facilities associated with this project.