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DOE to OK $6.5B for Georgia Nuclear Plant

posted by Dopefish on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-hail-the-almighty-atom dept.

CyberB0B39 writes: "The Department of Energy is set to approve $6.5B for a Georgia nuclear power plant, the first such plant in more than 3 decades. While other nuclear plants are shutting down due to competition from natural gas, Atlanta-based Southern Company is forging ahead with its planned construction of the plant."

[ED Note: "For those that are wondering, the new nuclear plant will be based on the AP1000 design by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, a company based in Pittsburgh, PA and a subsidiary of Toshiba."]

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by randmcnatt on Sunday February 23 2014, @03:55AM

    by randmcnatt (671) on Sunday February 23 2014, @03:55AM (#5063)
    There's a newer CBO report (2011) [nirs.org] online. I looked it over and the best I could get out of it was:

    Default rates and recovery rates are likely to vary considerably, both across projects and over the life-time of a given project. CBO does not have enough information to independently estimate an average recovery rate for nuclear construction loans.

    And it seems like every reactor defaults at sometime during construction or operation. The report does say that CBO assumes a 55% recovery rate, but it's not clear if that's just reactors or every leveraged business.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by wjwlsn on Sunday February 23 2014, @04:13AM

    by wjwlsn (171) on Sunday February 23 2014, @04:13AM (#5070) Homepage Journal

    I was just looking at the same report. It's difficult to conclude anything based on all the hand-waving within. Anyway, Appendix A has a section called "Default and Loss Experience" that is probably the best source of info... but again, they don't come right and give a clear answer. At one point they say "...episodes in which bondholders lose money have been fairly rare ...", but later on they say "...n several notable cases, bondholders have taken sizeable losses ..."

    I'm so glad I'm an engineer and not a money guy... talking around the issue without stating any conclusions (like these guys seemed to do, IMO) would drive me nuts.

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