San Onofre, fixable for free, will now cost CA ratepayers $13.6 BILLION to replace [View all]

[wtmusic]

"On July 18, just 42 days after announcing the retirement of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, its owners drove a stake through its heart, making sure it never works again. Playing the role of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Ted Craver, the chief executive of Edison International, which owns about 80 percent of the plant. He now holds the land speed record for killing a nuke. Next executives will work up the tab for consumers, which may also set a record — and rush to build a slew of profitable replacement infrastructure."

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"Under California’s system of regulating monopoly utilities, the cost for anything a utility builds to deliver power goes onto consumer bills — along with a profit of around 10 percent a year. My rough estimate, which is undoubtedly low because it assumes regulators will side with consumers, suggests that consumers face a minimum of $13.6 billion in costs arising from the defunct nuke — including $4.5 billion in potential new utility profits over 25 years."

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"Before Craver decided to scrap San Onofre, he didn’t bother to give customers or regulators a basic cost-benefit analysis. Something like this: “Our biggest power plant is broken. It will cost X and take X years to fix. But scrapping it will cost X, plus X to build replacement plants. Anti-nuclear groups will fight any fix. So I’ve decided to scrap it and send you the bill, which will be X.”

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jul/27/swift-secret-kill-onofre-nuclear

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries claimed fixing it would be covered under a $138 million dollar warranty. Free, to Edison and CA ratepayers. Edison pulled the plug simply because anti-nuclear activists could keep re-certification tied up for years, costing Edison $1 million every day - not to mention adding 8 million tons of carbon to the air every year. Great job, antinukes!