By Patty Durand
On April 30, 2024, Georgia Power finally completed the first new nuclear reactors in the U.S. in 30 years. But for Georgia Power customers, the project did not come with a celebration. It came with a 25% rate increase the day after the two reactors entered commercial service, the largest rate increase in state history. All of this as Georgia Power rakes in record profits, by some accounts as much as 23% of consumer electric bills.
And Plant Vogtle came with its own “Let them eat cake” moment for Georgians: On May 31, 2024, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm joined federal and state officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on site in Waynesboro, Georgia. There, she called for building 200 more Westinghouse AP1000 reactors without mentioning the project’s whopping $36 billion price tag, while attendees were literally treated to cake shaped like nuclear reactors. Not only was Secretary Granholm not a Georgia Power customer and thus not impacted, none of the state Public Service Commission (PSC) commissioners regulating Georgia Power were either: they were all Georgia EMC customers.
Regulatory Failure
Throughout construction, as cost overruns ran into the billions of dollars, these same regulators declined to put consumer protections in place, claiming that a thorough review to determine what costs were prudent and reasonable would take place at the end. Yet that final, thorough review never happened. Georgia is one of only five states with no Consumer Utility Counsel or Advocate to represent consumers in complex, billion-dollar rate cases. For Vogtle, that absence had profound consequences: as the project neared completion after 7 years of delay, PSC staff and Georgia Power reached an agreement in private under which nearly all cost overruns would be passed directly to customers, with no public hearings or thorough prudency review.
Because those hearings were never held, there is little national understanding of the drivers of the cost overruns, allowing all kinds of beliefs about new nuclear energy to take root without a factual record. Consultants hired in the spring of 2023 by the commission prepared reports for what were expected to be weeks of cost review hearings that fall. Those reports never saw the light of day, but we know they concluded that most of the cost overruns should not be borne by customers.
Next Time Won’t Be Better
What does that have to do with the national push for new nuclear power underway now? There is a strong belief among proponents that the next time will be different, that a learning curve exists from Georgia’s experience. Claims that Unit 4 was cheaper to build, or that there was any meaningful learning curve, are not backed up by facts or documentation. If that were true reports documenting that amazing outcome would be public and news stories would proliferate, but neither exists.
In fact, nearly every major claim made leading up to and throughout the project was false. Georgia Power claimed for years that Plant Vogtle was on time and on budget when it wasn’t. South Carolina Electric & Gas and Westinghouse made false claims of progress on their twin nuclear project at V.C. Summer, using the same AP1000 reactor design as Georgia, leading to criminal charges and massive fines for both utility and Westinghouse executives when the truth was revealed.
Important Repercussions
The political fallout in Georgia has been significant too. Last November, two Public Service Commissioners who backed Vogtle were removed by voters in decisive elections, the first time in 30 years that Democrats were elected to the commission. The following month, a special election flipped a traditionally Republican-held seat to a Democrat who campaigned on Public Service Commission accountability. And last month, a third Public Service Commissioner, a staunch nuclear power advocate, announced she would not seek reelection.
This is what makes the current push for nuclear power so troubling. It is happening at a time when the economics of energy have fundamentally changed. Renewable energy, especially solar and wind paired with battery storage, is dramatically cheaper and faster to deploy than nuclear power projects. Flexibility is what a modern grid needs now, not the large baseload generating power plants and high voltage transmission lines of the past. By pursuing new nuclear and natural gas for data centers, Georgia is looking backward. Anyone following this path is too.
The truth is that Texas deployed 30 gigawatts of solar generation and 6 gigawatts of storage in just the past four years at a cost of about $36 billion. Georgia deployed 2 gigawatts of nuclear generation over 15 years also at a cost of about $36 billion. That is typical for nuclear power: projects are either cancelled at great cost to ratepayers as in South Carolina, or are built at great cost to ratepayers as in Georgia.
Profits Over People
So why are the voices promoting nuclear generation only growing louder? The answer appears to be an outdated view of the electricity grid among some, and the pursuit of profits among others. This dynamic is clear from the substantial profits that Plant Vogtle delivers to Georgia Power. Westinghouse, Small Modular Reactor (SMR) startups, and other utilities are eager to pursue big profits from nuclear power too. Even more disturbing, the Trump administration announced a $6 billion merger of Trump Media and nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies, while it relaxes nuclear safety protocols that benefit allies.
Plant Vogtle offers a cautionary tale to the country: eighteen months after Georgia Public Service Commissioners enjoyed cake in the shape of nuclear reactors, two of them were gone. This year, a third commissioner will be gone. Elected officials must understand that voters will not reward you for pursuing nuclear power: they will remove you.
