Fresh Loaf

Earlier this year, Georgia Power made themselves a bunch of enemies with Senate Bill 31, a controversial piece of legislation sponsored by state Sen. Don Balfour, R-Snellville, that allows the utility to charge customers in advance for two new proposed nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Ga.

The bill’s proponents said the rate hike, which would cover the reactors’ financing costs, was necessary to build the costly white elephants. Consumer groups, libertarians, conservatives, liberals — hell, even senior citizens — fumed at the proposed tacked-on cost. Nonetheless, SB 31 passed, and starting in 2011 ratepayers will see an additional $1.30 each month on their energy bills. The monthly fee will roughly double every year, topping out at an estimated $9.30 a month — or $108 a year — in 2017.

Well, Uncle Sam might give Georgia Power ratepayers a little bit of a reprieve from those Plant Vogtle charges. The U.S. Department of Energy is set to bestow $18 billion in federal financing to four utilities that could boost nuclear energy production. And those Plant Vogtle reactors are reportedly on the federal agency’s shortlist.

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Do you or one of your neighbors have an extra closet — maybe some storage space or a shed out back — where a mom-and-pop nuclear facility can dispose of their low-level radioactive waste? Plant Vogtle might need to borrow it.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and other environmental groups recently raised a red flag about two new reactors proposed for the nuclear plant near Augusta that’s owned and operated by several Peach State utilities, including Georgia Power.

At issue is whether the nuclear facility, already home to two power-generating white elephants, has sufficient plans to safely dispose of low-level radioactive waste produced by the new reactors.

And late last week, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a three-judge federal panel that’s part of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and one of the many steps in the complicated process of approving nuke plants, said the environmental groups’ concerns merit a closer look. Should Southern Nuclear, the Southern Co. subsidiary that operates Plant Vogtle, not produce a better long-term plan, the federal agency might not issue the company a permit to build the new reactors.

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