{"id":1225,"date":"2019-02-06T11:20:23","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T11:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2025-11-25T07:53:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T23:53:22","slug":"south-carolina-spent-9-billion-to-dig-a-hole-in-the-ground-and-then-fill-it-back-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/south-carolina-spent-9-billion-to-dig-a-hole-in-the-ground-and-then-fill-it-back-in\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina Spent $9 Billion to Dig a Hole in the Ground and Then Fill It Back In"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The objection raised<\/u> most frequently when it comes to a Green New Deal is its cost. It\u2019s preposterous; it\u2019s too expensive; we just can\u2019t afford it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But before scoffing at the prospect of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world funding such a project, it\u2019s worth taking a look at what one of the country\u2019s poorest states was recently able to spend.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Carolina, in a bid to expand its generation of nuclear power in recent years, dropped $9 billion on a single project \u2014 and has nothing to show for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The boondoggle, which was<\/span> covered<\/a><\/span> widely in the Palmetto State press but got little attention nationally, sheds light on just how much money is genuinely available for an industrial-level energy transformation, if only the political will were there.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There are no firm figures tied to a Green New Deal, but former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein\u2019s proposed version<\/a> of the project would have cost between $700 billion and $1 trillion. The<\/span> new plan<\/span><\/a>, being crafted with the help of progressive groups like the Sunrise Movement and pushed to the top of the House legislative agenda by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives, promises more substantial change on a much shorter schedule. In addition to moving the U.S. to 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years, upgrading all residential and industrial buildings for energy efficiency, and eliminating greenhouse gases from manufacturing and agriculture, it includes a jobs guarantee and a recognition of the rights of tribal nations. Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey are planning to introduce legislation for the plan this week, Axios<\/span> reported<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In South Carolina, lawmakers greenlighted a<\/span> multibillion<\/span><\/a>-dollar energy project and stuck utility customers with the tab. \u201cIn the private sector,\u201d former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Gregory Jaczko told The Intercept, \u201cyou would never be able to justify this.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The saga, and related nuclear project failures, calls into question the role of new nuclear energy production in the effort to decarbonize the economy. New plants, Jaczko said, take too long to build for the urgency of the climate crisis and simply aren\u2019t cost effective, given advances in renewable energy. \u201cI don\u2019t see nuclear as a solution to climate change,\u201d Jaczko said. \u201cIt\u2019s too expensive, and would take too long if it could even be deployed. There are cheaper, better alternatives. And even better alternatives that are getting cheaper, faster.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Nuclear Boondoggle<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

It started in 2008. SCE&G and Santee Cooper<\/span> announced<\/span><\/a> plans to add two nuclear reactors to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, and contracted Westinghouse Electric Company, owned by<\/span> Toshiba<\/a><\/span>, to handle construction. The state\u2019s Public Service Commission (PSC)<\/span> approved<\/span><\/a> the plan in early 2009, with construction slated to begin in<\/span> 2012<\/span><\/a>, and the first reactor set to begin operating in 2016.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In late 2011, SCE&G announced the project\u2019s first delay in a quarterly<\/span> report<\/span><\/a> to the Office of Regulatory Staff, which represents utilities in front of the PSC, citing \u201cmodule redesign, production issues, manpower issues and Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA\/QC) issues.\u201d The company estimated an 11-month setback and said its contractor, the Shaw Group, operating out of a facility in Louisiana, reported that the issues had been resolved. But SCE&G said they were still monitoring the situation \u201ccarefully\u201d and considered \u201cit to be a focus area for the project.\u201d The Shaw facility would later face a federal<\/span> probe<\/span><\/a> over unrelated allegations that workers broke protocol and falsified records, which employees admitted to.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The company alerted more <\/span>delays<\/span><\/a> in mid-2013, citing manufacturing issues. Soon, Santee Cooper asked SCE&G to bring in another company to manage the project. Not long after that, both companies announced the project would cost<\/span> $1.2 billion<\/a><\/span> more than they\u2019d expected. Again, they pushed back the project\u2019s completion date.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Documents<\/span> released<\/span><\/a> as the project unraveled show that both SCE&G and Santee Cooper were well aware of shortcomings, mismanagement, and lack of oversight that eventually made the reactors impossible to complete, years before Westinghouse declared bankruptcy and both companies pulled out.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were allowed to charge the customers for all the money that they spent, plus a return,\u201d Jaczko explained. \u201cEven though they failed to deliver the project.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Only<\/span> 48 percent<\/a> <\/span>of South Carolinians know about the failed program, according to an October statewide poll surveying electric ratepayers.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe utilities are incredibly powerful political lobbies in the state,\u201d Jaczko said. \u201cIt\u2019s now $2.3 billion that they\u2019re gonna be able to get,\u201d he said, and that doesn\u2019t include the rate of return Dominion says it\u2019s entitled to.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane for a project that\u2019s done nothing, and never will. And is just a giant hole in the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cWell, a filled-in hole now, at this point.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Left With the Tab<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Thanks to a state law passed in 2007, residents in South Carolina are footing the bill for a massive failed nuclear reactor program that cost a total of $9 billion. Analysts say that corporate mismanagement and poor oversight means residents and their families will be paying for that failed energy program \u2014  which never produced a watt of energy \u2014 for the next 20 years or more.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has since<\/span> called<\/span><\/a> parts of the law, the Base Load Review Act, \u201cconstitutionally suspect,\u201d and state senators have<\/span> voted<\/a><\/span> to overturn it \u2014  but that wouldn\u2019t necessarily get ratepayers off the hook for paying for the failed project.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Both the <\/span>Justice Department<\/span><\/a> and the<\/span> Securities and Exchange Commission<\/span><\/a> opened separate investigations into the failed project, and at least<\/span> 19 lawsuits<\/a> <\/span>have been filed against one company involved.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The two South Carolina companies, South Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper, a state-owned utility, spent $9 billion on a plan to build two nuclear reactors and eventually canceled it due to a series of cost miscalculations and corporate buyouts that left one construction company bankrupt and sent<\/span> shockwaves<\/a><\/span> all the way to Japanese tech giant Toshiba.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dominion Energy, an energy giant in the region, has since<\/span> bought<\/span><\/a> out SCE&G\u2019s parent company, SCANA Corp., for $7.9 billion \u2014 almost the entire cost of the failed project \u2014 pledged to partially<\/span> refund<\/a><\/span> ratepayers and cut electricity rates, which SCE&G hiked at least<\/span> nine times<\/span><\/a> throughout the project\u2019s first eight years in order to pay for it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about the failed project, South Carolina Republican Rep. William Timmons laughed. He said ratepayers would still pay \u201ca substantial portion\u201d of the bill. \u201cThe SCANA portion, which is \u2014 approximately half has been substantially dealt with, with their restructuring and the purchase of Dominion,\u201d he told The Intercept. \u201cWhat\u2019s left now is the Santee Cooper portion, and I think that\u2019s still yet to be decided.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a major issue that the legislature\u2019s dealing with,\u201d Timmons said. The congressman didn\u2019t have any updates on how or when the remainder of the bill would resolved.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Dominion bought out SCANA and settled their portion of the bill, ratepayers are still responsible for about $2.3 billion. \u201cFor nothing, they get nothing,\u201d Jaczko told The Intercept.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey basically pay money up front for a project that never materialized, and now are still gonna be asked to pay for it. And that is a significant break from the way that traditional rate recovery used to work,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be that you didn\u2019t start charging for a plant unless it was done and operating. Whether it was a nuclear plant, or a coal plant, or any other kind of thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But because nuclear power involves heavier upfront capital costs and financing charges, Jaczko explained, states looking to revive nuclear power tried to bypass those extra costs by passing laws allowing companies to save money by recovering the cost of financing the projects during the period of construction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven the law that was written in South Carolina envisioned the fact that the project could get canceled. But of course everybody promised that that wouldn\u2019t happen,\u201d Jaczko said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sen. Tim Scott told The Intercept that it was hard to pin the blame for the disastrous project on any one entity. \u201cBut certainly the Westinghouse bid coming back three times higher than their original estimation made the likelihood of success challenging. And then all the decisions that were made pending that being an accurate price all fell apart,\u201d he said. He did not answer a question of whether ratepayers would have to pay $2.3 billion for nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

For conservatives and corporate-friendly Democrats, the idea of spending absurd amounts of money on a comprehensive national plan to wean the economy off dirty energy and create sustainable jobs is out of the question. It\u2019s an idea much easier to swallow when its stated purpose is corporate profit, as in South Carolina. Or at the federal level, national defense. President Donald Trump<\/span> signed<\/span><\/a> into law last summer a $717 billion defense bill, up from <\/span>$600 billion<\/span><\/a> in 2016, and around<\/span> $300 billion<\/span><\/a> in 2000. In December the president <\/span>tweeted<\/span><\/a> that U.S. military spending was \u201cCrazy!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For scale, the national deficit for fiscal year 2019 is just shy of<\/span> $1 trillion<\/span><\/a>. Of the<\/span> $4.4 trillion<\/span><\/a> federal budget, military spending across agencies makes up close to <\/span>$800 billion<\/span>. The federal government spent about<\/span> $1.1 trillion<\/a><\/span> on health care in 2018. The latest government shutdown cost the U.S. an estimated<\/span> $11 billion<\/span><\/a>, the Congressional Budget Office reported. Trump requested $5.7 billion for a border wall, and Republicans in the House<\/span> found<\/a><\/span> it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But $9 billion and zero nuclear reactors later, ratepayers in South Carolina have no say after their legislators played with the state\u2019s resources and lost. If one state can throw away $9 billion on a project that never happened, legislators in Washington will have a difficult time claiming that they can\u2019t find federal dollars to finance a plan that<\/span> 81 percent<\/span><\/a> of registered voters support.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can pay for a Green New Deal in the same way we pay for \u2014 whether it\u2019s wars, or tax cuts, or any of the other great social programs that we have,\u201d Greg Carlock told The Intercept. He\u2019s a senior adviser at Data for Progress, where he authored a report<\/a> outlining policy proposals for the Green New Deal. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, Carlock says he disagrees with the argument that you have to tax the wealthy, or the middle class, to pay for a Green New Deal. Instead, he argues<\/a>, Congress should just authorize new spending, like it does for everything else.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a really well-crafted narrative to bring up fears about deficit spending and the debt,\u201d Carlock said. \u201cI think that we, one, have to just break out of this fear that somehow this number that we call debt is a bad thing. Because it\u2019s not the same kind of debt that a household has, or that a business has,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver of inflation is not how many ones and zeros we\u2019ve put out there,\u201d Carlock said. \u201cThe driver of inflation is the availability of limited biophysical resources that that money is trying to go out and buy. And that\u2019s why, when you think about this from a sustainability perspective, a Green New Deal that tries to improve the sustainability of our natural resources, is actually meant as a deflationary role.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest threat to our economy and inflation is not the debt, it\u2019s the climate crisis,\u201d he added, \u201cwhich will put an even greater strain on our resources. The whole point of a Green New Deal is to mitigate those threats, and it will be cheaper than the cost of future climate disasters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Investing in clean energy, sustainable jobs, and a basic standard of health care would actually <\/span>save money<\/a><\/span> in the long run \u2014 tens to hundreds of billions of dollars per year, according to a climate<\/span> assessment<\/span><\/a> released under the Trump administration this year. The argument that the money isn\u2019t there just doesn\u2019t hold up.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAny politician whose first question about the Green New Deal is how to pay for it isn\u2019t taking seriously the millions who will die if we fail to take action on the scale scientists say we need,\u201d Stephen Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, said in a statement to The Intercept.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are talking about is a putting millions of people to work so they can buy food for their families, etc. This is the greatest investment in the American economy in generations, and that kind of investment pays substantial dividends,\u201d Hanlon said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will pay for this the same way we paid for the WWII (sic) and the original New Deal: deciding it\u2019s a priority as a nation and that we can\u2019t afford not to take action.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a $28 billion nuclear<\/span> project<\/span><\/a> in Georgia is headed for a similar fate.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Feature image<\/strong> -V.C. Summer Nuclear Station\u2019s unit two\u2019s turbine, right <\/strong>and containment unit, center<\/strong>
\nare shown under construction near Jenkinsville, S.C., on Sept. 21, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo: Chuck Burton\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Akela Lacy<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n


February 6 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The objection raised most frequently when it comes to a Green New Deal is its cost. It\u2019s preposterous; it\u2019s too expensive; we just can\u2019t afford it. But before scoffing at the prospect of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world funding such a project, it\u2019s worth taking a look at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-1225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-political-issues","tag-nuclear-power-too-dangerous-too-expensive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}