Nuclear Energy is Spiraling Downward – Huge Costs of Building a Plant Are Dooming Industry

And Duke Energy Wants Ratepayers to Pay for Failure

Nuclear reactors to produce electricity is a dying industry. The industry always had a limited future because it generates killer waste and there is no place to put it. But in the last few years it has faced a new killer threat, costs. The amount of money it takes to build a nuclear plant is huge, and there have been massive cost over-runs on plants under construction. So much so that plants are being abandoned left and right and Toshiba who builds plants may well go under.

Duke Power has stopped working on a nuclear facility. And they want rate payers to pay for the mistake of management in starting it in the first place.

Duke Energy Carolinas wants to cancel its planned Lee Nuclear Station and will ask regulators to allow it to recover at least $368 million in planning and pre-construction costs from N.C. customers.

Duke notes its plan for Lee as part of its request for a 13.9% rate increase filed Friday with the N.C. Utilities Commission. And it filed a separate proposal specifically on canceling the project. Duke filed both with the commission shortly after 10 a.m. Friday.

But ratepayers are not the ones who made the decision to start a nuclear plant. That was done by management who is put in place by the Board of Directors who represent the shareholders. This one should be on them, the shareholders, and not the customers.