July 31: That Humiliating Anniversary
It was a high honor for Virgil C. Summer when SCE&G named its new power plant for him. After all, in 1984, V.C. Summer I was an impressive engineering feat. The new nuclear reactor generated a whopping 966 MW of electricity, and its construction was so efficient that it cost far less per MW generated than other reactors in its cohort.
Interest in expanding the VCS rose and fell with federal government tax breaks for nuclear power until in 2008 when SCE&G applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build two more reactors on the site in Fairfield County. Work began in 2013.
But seven years ago today, on July 31, 2017. “V.C. Summer” became a national byword for incompetence. It was on that date that state-owned Santee-Cooper and investor-owned South Carolina Electric and Gas announced that work would be halted on the construction of units II & III. Five thousand workers at the site near Jenkinsville lost their jobs. Four years and $9 billion was lost for what is now essentially a hole in the ground.
SCE&G was purchased by Virginia-based Dominion Energy and Dominion ate some of the VCS debt as a part of the sale. But Santee Cooper, because it is an agency of the South Carolina government, had no investors to assume its debt. For that reason, customers—known as ratepayers—will be paying back V.C. Summer debt until at least 2032. In the wake of legal action, Santee Cooper electricity rates were frozen for a time, but residential, industrial, and retail customers will pay more for power soon. At Dominion, over $2 billion of debt remains.
For advocates of nuclear power, July 31 will always be a dark anniversary. It is the date on which nuclear as a source of electrical power generation died in South Carolina, perhaps in America.
Or did it? Is nuclear power in fact dead?
Just two weeks ago, Palmetto Promise Institute released a report by Summer Fellow Jennifer Buckley on how nuclear power generation may, like Lazarus, rise again. With her report, Jennifer scooped The New York Times, which finally got around to publishing its article “A Radical Reboot of Nuclear Energy” on Monday of this week.
We won’t spoil Jennifer’s findings, but here’s a hint: it isn’t your grandaddy’s nuclear, and it is entirely doable.
