The High Cost of New Nuclear Power Comes Due

Driven by public backlash over skyrocketing utility bills, on election day Georgia voters flipped the Public Service Commission to Democratic control for the first time in decades. Between 2025 and 2026 Georgia voters elected three pro-consumer commissioners. We will now see real change over the next four years as our new commissioners address the overall cost of electricity in Georgia by accelerating affordable renewables and energy efficiency, and reducing Georgia Power’s obscene profits.

Although the historic Georgia elections can be seen as a repudiation of Trump’s policies, what is also true is that allowing seven rate increases in three years, including the largest rate increase in state history of 25% to pay for Plant Vogtle’s massive cost overruns for the two nuclear power reactors that came online in 2023 and 2024, came due. Every Public Service Commissioner who supported new nuclear energy lost their election. And every elected official who was named a “nuclear champion” by the industry-backed Nuclear Matters lost: former PSC Commissioners Fitz Johnson, Tim Echols, and Tricia Pridemore, are gone. The remaining two commissioners in support of Plant Vogtle’s construction and subsequent rate hikes will face voters in 2028.

The political consequences for the Plant Vogtle boondoggle were seen at the Georgia legislature too, where long-term incumbent Don Parsons, chair of the House Energy & Utilities Committee, was defeated. He too received a 2026 “nuclear champion” award. In this year’s legislative session Parson’s tried to insert new nuclear energy as a generation source that must be considered in Georgia Power’s long term energy plan, the Integrated Resource Plan.

These Republican elected officials have caused real harm to Georgians:275,000 Georgians had their power shut off in 2025, or one in nine households. The 25% rate increase for Plant Vogtle’s new reactors, which went into effect in 2024, was the largest contributor to rising costs and caused voters to hold those Commissioners accountable. Georgia voters could not have sent a stronger message: elected officials who serve the interests of Georgia Power instead of their constituents will lose their seats.

With Democrats in control of the Georgia House and the Georgia Public Service Commission, Georgians will now get the affordable solar power that Republicans have blocked for decades at Georgia Power’s request. Common sense policies supporting renewables will advance, finally. Though Georgia is one of the top 10 sunniest states, Georgia ranks 47^th for residential solar, and commercial solar, community solar, and balcony solar are nonexistent. That will now change given the election results.

Georgia Power was already spending money on pursuing new nuclear power in Stewart County, because why stop the money train when officials are beholden to powerful monopoly utilities and special interests? Well now they will be stopped.

When I was previously president of the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, I was shocked that the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a rate plan that clearly harmed low to moderate income households because of the large monthly fee it imposed, called a demand charge. I knew Georgia Power was a for-profit monopoly, but I did not know they would target poor people, and I did not know our state agency charged with protecting the public interest would allow it. I call that my naïve phase. I had no idea how bad Georgia Power actually was then.

As I began to research what else Georgia Power was doing that was harmful to Georgians, my shock grew to anger: I discovered Plant Vogtle, then the only new nuclear power plant under construction in the United States, was being billed as  “U.S. leadership in advancing nuclear technology.”

Really? Why was Georgia, the 10^th poorest state in the nation, tasked with achieving nuclear technology leadership for the entire country? If that was a goal, the federal government should be leading.

But that wasn’t the real goal. The real goal was that Georgia Power was building a big expensive thing so that Georgia Power could get big profits under the state’s cost-plus business model where the more money Georgia Power spends, the most profits they make. And because we had Republicans taking money from Georgia Power and delivering their legislative and commercial goals, Plant Vogtle’s new reactors were built with no cost caps and no consumer protections in place. It became the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth, clocking in at $36.8 billion, more than double the original cost estimates.

Georgia Power’s PR spin machine tried to make Georgians proud that we had built new nuclear because we did something no other state could do.

Once people saw their huge power bills and Georgia Power’s huge profits they realized they had been bamboozled. And the rest is electoral history made last night.

While I celebrate the lost careers of those “nuclear champions”, I am still sad and angry over the 275,000 Georgia Power customers who lost electricity in 2025 for inability to pay their huge bills. That is one in nine households, and a public health tragedy that should not have happened. I am angry that Georgia Power is on track to earn a record $3 billion in profits in 2026 in large part from Plant Vogtle’s expansion. And I am angry that Republicans did not understand that their mandate as elected officials is to reduce the suffering of people and make government work to improve lives, but instead consistently voted to expand corporate power and wealth without regard to the impacts of regular people.

A message has been delivered by voters: people matter. Georgia is “not a great place to do business” when its people don’t do well and prosper.

Stay tuned for good things coming from Georgia. And for “nuclear champions” in other states rushing to embrace nuclear power for data centers, take note: that will not end well for you. Heed the message Georgia is sending: do not follow our path.