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DOE to OK $6.5B for Georgia Nuclear Plant

posted by Dopefish on Saturday February 22 2014, @10:00PM   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, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Saturday February 22 2014, @10:57PM

    by Appalbarry (66) on Saturday February 22 2014, @10:57PM (#5052) Homepage Journal

    I'll bite: if there's solid business case for GP building this project, why do they need government guarantees to get the money to do it?

    If the Market won't lend them money based just on the business's likelihood of profit, then I have to assume there's some kind of significant risk that we're not being told about.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by wjwlsn on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:15PM

    by wjwlsn (171) on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:15PM (#5054) Homepage Journal

    Moody's had this to say about it last year, before the loan guarantees were approved:

    "In the event the two parties cannot come to agreement on the final terms and conditions of a guarantee, Georgia Power would continue to finance the plant as it has done thus far with its own capital market financings. We would view this situation as only a slight credit negative as interest costs would be marginally higher than DOE guaranteed debt, although this is mitigated over the near term by the low aggregate level of interest rates, as well as by Georgia Power’s strong credit quality and capital markets access. We note that the South Carolina Electric & Gas has proceeded with a nearly identical nuclear construction project without a DOE loan guarantee."

    I'm no finance guy, but to me, this says that GP not getting the loan guarantees wouldn't be a show-stopper. With the loan guarantees, they'll get marginally better interest rates.

    PDF linky - http://matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/public/sit es/274/assets/9O21_Moodys_report_on_Vogtle_July_11 _2013.pdf [amazonaws.com]

    --
    I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2014, @01:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2014, @01:48PM (#5246)

      Awesome; thanks for the info.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:42PM (#5062)

    I would assume the biggest risk for anything nuclear would be political.