As some of you may know, Georgia Power is constructing two new Nuclear Reactors at their facility outside of Augusta in Waynesboro GA. Delivery of these reactors are currently four years behind schedule and Billions over budget. In addition, the contractor responsible for constructing the units (Westinghouse Corporation) has now gone bankrupt and is likely to abandon their obligation to complete construction placing their completion in doubt and stranding over 3 Billion Dollars already spent which rate payers will have to foot. While guarantees exist from the parent company of Westinghouse, Toshiba, they may very well be forced to declare bankruptcy themselves placing any hope of Georgia Power from recovering the cost to complete the project at risk and leaving the burden to pay for them potentially on rate payers such as myself and possibly you.
A governmental commission exists to manage Georgia Power and the projects that they undertake, yet they have largely been asleep at the switch and allowed Georgia Power to do largely as they have wanted. The Georgia Public Service Commission is a 5 person elected commission responsible for looking out for the rate payers, but far more often than not looks out for Georgia Power. The commissioner for our region is a gentleman named Stan Wise. In addition, our legislature, having been lobbied by Georgia Power back in 2009, authorized them to add a tariff(charge) on our bills to help them pay for the cost to construct the units in advance of the first watt being produced by the units as opposed to funding the cost thru issuance of bonds or other financing mechanisms. Georgia Power was also able to obtain 8 Billion dollars in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy which if the project is not completed, all U.S. Taxpayers will end up paying for.
If you have interest in reading more about this fiasco, following is a link to an organization that tracking the project, but only requires a Google search to help you get up to speed.