The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part 14

Subtitle: A Few More Reasons Nuclear Cannot Compete

This article discusses a few economic issues including project cancellations due to unfavorable economics, the desperation of reactor vendors, nuclear advocates tout low operating costs and ignore capital costs, nuclear utilities never ask for a rate decrease when building a new nuclear plant, and high nuclear costs are buried in a large customer base.    Future articles will discuss nuclear safety, research into new forms of nuclear power, and the driving force behind countries that choose nuclear power in spite of its numerous and serious disadvantages. 

Previously, the articles on The Truth About Nuclear Power emphasized the economic aspect by showing that (one) modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy, (two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid, (three) they cost far too much to construct, (four) use far more water for cooling, 4 times as much, than better alternatives, (five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards, (six) they are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale, (seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation, (eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits due to reverse economy of scale, (nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction, (ten) nuclear plants do not reach 50 or 60 years life because they require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, (eleven) France has 85 percent of its electricity produced via nuclear power but it is subsidized, is still almost twice as expensive as prices in the US, and is only viable due to exporting power at night rather than throttling back the plants during low demand, (twelve) nuclear plants cannot provide cheap power on small islands, and (thirteen) US nuclear plants are heavily subsidized but still cannot compete.  Links to previous articles are found at the conclusion of this article.  

Cancellations Due To Economics

Several planned projects were cancelled due to unfavorable economics, including the South Texas Nuclear Project expansion.  That project was to double the existing plant output by installing two more reactors.  A Japanese firm made several cost estimates to the prospective owners, with each estimate higher than the last.  At $17 billion, the vendor admitted they had not provided the final figure.  The project collapsed.  The cities of Austin, and San Antonio were approached as potential owners and customers, however Austin (wisely) said an emphatic NO.  San Antonio signed on for a while, but finally said No also after no final project cost was to be had from the vendor.  

Desperate Reactor Vendors

Reactor vendors are desperate to sell plants and subsidize new plants in UK, Turkey, and India, perhaps also in China.  This was mentioned briefly in Part 11, which discusses the French nuclear industry.  A French firm contracted with India to provide a multiple-reactor power complex, but had to agree to only 10 cents per kWh as the sales price (they asked for 16 cents) and had to sweeten the deal by financing the construction at only 4.8 percent interest over 25 years.  

[Update - 6/24/2014: Russia's Rusatom also is desperate to sell nuclear plants and signed a sweetheart deal with Hungary to finance two new reactors - 80 percent of the construction cost at approximately 4 percent interest over 21 years, beginning after plant startup.  "Hungary will be required to repay its debt in euros -- at variable rates of 3.95-4.95 percent interest -- over a term of 21 years, starting after the new blocks are commissioned."  see link  --- end update]

Bait and Switch

Nuclear proponents emphasize low operating costs but ignore high capital costs.  This is like buying a new car that gets 1,000 miles per gallon.  Sure, the operating costs would be fifteen gallons of fuel per year, or roughly $60 in the US at current prices.   That is the price of one tank-full for most modern cars.  But, the car payments would be ten times what a normal car would cost.  Instead of $500 per month, the bank will charge $5,000 each month.   Few consumers would choose such a car because they simply cannot afford to pay $5,000 per month for a car.   Yet, this is exactly what nuclear proponents are advocating for their nuclear power plants.  Even the older, paid-for plants cannot compete in today's and the foreseeable future's market on low operating costs.  

Never a Rate Decrease

To the best of my knowledge, no utility has ever asked for a rate decrease to build a nuclear plant.   If nuclear power could really be produced for 2 or 3 cents per kWh, one would expect that the customers would see their power bills decrease when the nuclear plants are built.  Instead, high power prices are disguised by burying them in a huge customer base.  Perhaps that is the reason that, again to my knowledge, nuclear plants are not merchant plants but are owned by the utilities themselves.  A merchant plant would need to sell its power on a contract to the utility.  That contract would necessarily have the price much higher to recover the capital costs and the operating costs. 

Conclusion

The articles thus far have provided at least 20 reasons why nuclear power plants are uneconomic and therefore should not be built nor operated.   The main issue is the use of nuclear fuel pellets to provide heat for the water to boil to steam.  All else follows from that.  The plants are huge to obtain economy of scale, they are more costly to increase safety, they have larger equipment and pipes because more steam flow is required for the same output of electricity, prices must be much higher but are disguised or buried among a huge customer base, they use too much water for cooling, and even France has multiple problems even after massive subsidies for decades, plus many, many other reasons described in the first 13 articles.  

Previous articles in the Truth About Nuclear Power series are found at the following links.  Additional articles will be linked as they are published. 

Part One – Nuclear Power Plants Cannot Compete

Part Two – Preposterous Power Pricing if Nuclear Power Proponents Prevail

Part Three – Nuclear Power Plants Cost Far Too Much to Construct

Part Four – Nuclear Power Plants Use Far More Fresh Water

Part Five – Cannot Simply Turn Off a Nuclear Power Plant

Part Six –  Nuclear Plants are Huge to Reduce Costs

Part Seven -- All Nuclear Grid Will Sell Less Power

Part Eight – No Benefits from Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants

Part Nine -- Nuclear Plants Require Long Construction Schedules

Part Ten -- Nuclear Plants Require Costly Upgrades After 20 to 30 Years

Part Eleven - Following France in Nuclear Is Not The Way To Go

Part Twelve - Nuclear Plants Cannot Provide Cheap Power on Small Islands

Part Thirteen - US Nuclear Plants are Heavily Subsidized

Part 14 - this article 

Part Fifteen - Nuclear Safety Compromised by Bending the Rules

Part Sixteen - Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks

Part Seventeen - Storing Spent Fuel is Hazardous for Short or Long Term

Part Eighteen - Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe

Part Nineteen - Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things

Part Twenty - Chernobyl Meltdown and Explosion

Part Twenty One - Three Mile Island Unit 2 Meltdown 1979

Part Twenty Two - Fukushima The Disaster That Could Not Happen

Part Twenty Three - San Onofre Shutdown Saga

Part Twenty Four - St. Lucie Ominous Tube Wear

Part Twenty Five - Price-Anderson Act Protects Nuclear Plants Too Much

Part Twenty Six - Evacuation Plans Required at Nuclear Plants

Part Twenty Seven - Power From Nuclear Fusion

Part Twenty Eight - Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

Part Twenty Nine - High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream

Part Thirty - Conclusion

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part Nine

Subtitle: Nuclear power plants require long construction schedules

Up until now, the Truth About Nuclear Power series has discussed the costs of operating and constructing the plants, and the impact on scarce water resources.  It has been shown that nuclear power plants cost far too much to construct, use far too much water, cannot compete in today’s electricity market, and if they were the sole source of electricity on a grid, power prices would escalate to unacceptably high levels.   

This article discusses one of the reasons nuclear plants cost so much, and debunks one of the favorite talking points of the nuclear advocates.  The advocates are fond of saying that nuclear plants would not cost so much if only the lawyers would step aside and let the plants be built without lawsuits.   In fact, frivolous lawsuits are now barred for new nuclear power construction in the US.  However, costly delays are occurring, and will occur in the future for the usual set of construction delay issues.  Delays cost money, and the longer the delay, the more money is spent by one of the parties to the construction. 

Examples of construction delays include, but are not limited to, tearing out and re-working faulty construction, equipment suppliers providing late or defective items, serious adverse weather, unforeseen site conditions, and redesign for new NRC requirements.  Also, delays can be caused by worker slowdowns, lawsuits for allowable causes, owner-contractor disputes, faulty design that requires corrections, acts of God or the enemy (force majeur), improper scheduling by the contractor, inadequate workforce staffing or untrained workforce (learning on the job), poor supervision, and others.

As one example, nuclear power plants have many critical welds.  The critical welds must be performed by qualified welders, who are paid a premium.  Also, the critical welds are required to be x-rayed to ensure the welds meet quality control specifications and will be sufficiently strong.  It takes time, and costs money to x-ray and inspect all those critical welds.  It is well-known that the South Texas Nuclear Plant had many faulty critical welds that failed x-ray inspection and had to be welded again until they were right. 

Another example, again from the South Texas Nuclear Plant, of faulty design that required correction is the mis-match on the drawings for two halves of the plant.  The piping and other items that were to connect across the match-line were off by a noticeable amount.  The work was delayed while the engineering firm re-engineered and re-issued the proper drawings.  Delays caused by faulty rebar for concrete have been an issue at the Vogtle plant under construction in Georgia, USA.   Other delays at Vogtle include design changes, and delivery of equipment.  Vogtle is now reported to be 21 months behind schedule.  That number will surely increase as more time passes.    See link for list of delays and cost over-runs at Vogtle.  

Delays occur in other countries, also.  As an example, the Finland plant being installed by Areva had delays with the concrete.  Apparently, the concrete was not to the required specification.  That project is also years behind schedule. 

Even without delays, nuclear plants require longer to construct due to the inherent danger of nuclear power (discussed in Part Five) and the three levels of containment required by the NRC.  In short, there are many more items of equipment required to contain the deadly radioactivity if and when an accident occurs.   More items of equipment require longer construction times.  Also, more testing is required before startup, more inspection as the construction progresses, all of which take time. 

Conclusion

Nuclear power plants require long construction schedules, made longer by delays that have nothing to do with lawsuits to impede progress.

Previous articles in the Truth About Nuclear Power series are found at the following links.  Additional articles will be linked as they are published. 

Part One – Nuclear Power Plants Cannot Compete

Part Two – Preposterous Power Pricing if Nuclear Power Proponents Prevail

Part Three – Nuclear Power Plants Cost Far Too Much to Construct

Part Four – Nuclear Power Plants Use Far More Fresh Water

Part Five – Cannot Simply Turn Off a Nuclear Power Plant

Part Six –  Nuclear Plants are Huge to Reduce Costs

Part Seven -- All Nuclear Grid Will Sell Less Power

Part Eight – No Benefits from Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants

Part Nine - this article

Part Ten - Nuclear Plants Require Costly Upgrades After 20 to 30 Years

Part Eleven - Following France in Nuclear Is Not The Way To Go

Part Twelve - Nuclear Plants Cannot Provide Cheap Power on Small Islands

Part Thirteen - Nuclear Plants Are Heavily Subsidized

Part Fourteen - A Few More Reasons Nuclear Cannot Compete

Part Fifteen - Nuclear Safety Compromised by Bending the Rules

Part Sixteen - Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks

Part Seventeen - Storing Spent Fuel is Hazardous for Short or Long Term

Part Eighteen - Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe

Part Nineteen - Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things

Part Twenty - Chernobyl Meltdown and Explosion

Part Twenty One - Three Mile Island Unit 2 Meltdown 1979

Part Twenty Two - Fukushima The Disaster That Could Not Happen

Part Twenty Three - San Onofre Shutdown Saga

Part Twenty Four - St. Lucie Ominous Tube Wear

Part Twenty Five - Price-Anderson Act Protects Nuclear Plants Too Much

Part Twenty Six - Evacuation Plans Required at Nuclear Plants

Part Twenty Seven - Power From Nuclear Fusion

Part Twenty Eight - Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

Part Twenty Nine - High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream

Part Thirty - Conclusion

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California

The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part Four

Subtitle: Nuclear plants use far more fresh water than other power plants

Nuclear power plants, as currently designed and built, consume prodigious amounts of water for cooling.  Compared to combined-cycle gas turbine plants (CCGT), nuclear plants use 4 times as much water for the same output of electricity.   Some plants use cooling towers, and others use once-through cooling where the water is pumped through the plant once, then sent off usually into a lake, river, or ocean.   

South Texas Nuclear Plant with Cooling Reservoir
source: Texas Water Development Board

For this article, the example of the South Texas Nuclear Project is used.  This power plant is a twin-reactor, pressurized water reactor design built near the mouth of the Colorado River in Texas, USA.  The photo nearby shows the location, just north of the small town of Matagorda, on the Gulf of Mexico.  The plant is roughly 50 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, and 100 miles southwest of Houston.   The photo shows the nuclear power plant in the middle foreground, the 7,000 acre cooling reservoir at center, and the Gulf of Mexico at the top.  The Colorado River can be seen, barely, at the left center. 

The plant, known as STNP, is designed to use approximately 50,000 acre-feet (AF) of river water per year for cooling.  The reservoir receives water pumped from the nearby Colorado River, plus any rain that happens to fall.  Rainfall is important in this case, as it averages 30 inches per year over the long term.  Recently the rainfall has been much less due to a prolonged drought.  However, in an average year, the rainfall provides approximately 17,000 AF per year for the plant.   That then, requires the river to provide 50,000 - 17,000 = 33,000 AF per year.  

The water requirements for various types of power plants are shown below, in AF/yr/1000 MW of electrical output.  These are based on the design where hot water that is discharged from the plant evaporates in the cooling reservoir to lose its heat.  

1.  Nuclear power.........................20,300 AF/y/1000 MW
2.  Gas powered steam plant......12,700
3.  CCGT plant................................5,070

From this, it can be seen that nuclear power requires 4 times as much water (20,300 / 5,070 = 4) compared to a modern CCGT plant.  In areas where fresh water is scarce, this is an important consideration when selecting power plant technology.  

Lake Travis and Mansfield Dam, TX
source: LCRA

For the STNP, the Colorado River water is impounded far upstream by Mansfield Dam and held in Lake Travis, a 1.1 million AF reservoir north of Austin, Texas.  Lake Travis is near historic low levels as this is written (March, 2014) due to an extended drought.  The lack of water could cause the STNP output to be reduced. 

For some perspective, had a CCGT design been used along with the 7,000 acre reservoir, the plant would be more than self-sufficient in water needs.   In fact, a much smaller reservoir could have been constructed, approximately one-third the surface area.  

Conclusion:   Nuclear power plants consume 4 time as much water for cooling compared to a modern CCGT power plant.  

Previous installments in The Truth About Nuclear Power can be found below:

Part One - Nuclear Power Plants Cannot Compete
Part Two - Preposterous Power Pricing if Nuclear Power Proponents Prevail
Part Three - Nuclear Power Plants Cost Far Too Much to Construct
Part Four  -  This article
Part Five - Cannot Simply Turn Off a Nuclear Power Plant
Part Six –  Nuclear Plants are Huge to Reduce Costs

Part Seven -- All Nuclear Grid Will Sell Less Power

Part Eight – No Benefits from Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants

Part Nine -- Nuclear Plants Require Long Construction Schedules

Part Ten - Nuclear Plants Require Costly Upgrades After 20 to 30 Years

Part Eleven - Following France in Nuclear Is Not The Way To Go

Part Twelve - Nuclear Plants Cannot Provide Cheap Power on Small Islands
Part Thirteen - Nuclear Plants Are Heavily Subsidized
Part Fourteen - A Few More Reasons Nuclear Cannot Compete
Part Fifteen - Nuclear Safety Compromised by Bending the Rules
Part Sixteen - Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks
Part Seventeen - Storing Spent Fuel is Hazardous for Short or Long Term

Part Eighteen - Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe

Part Nineteen - Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things
Part Twenty - Chernobyl Meltdown and Explosion
Part Twenty One - Three Mile Island Unit 2 Meltdown 1979
Part Twenty Two - Fukushima The Disaster That Could Not Happen
Part Twenty Three - San Onofre Shutdown Saga
Part Twenty Four - St. Lucie Ominous Tube Wear

Part Twenty Five - Price-Anderson Act Protects Nuclear Plants Too Much

Part Twenty Six - Evacuation Plans Required at Nuclear Plants

Part Twenty Seven - Power From Nuclear Fusion
Part Twenty Eight - Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process
Part Twenty Nine - High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream
Part Thirty - Conclusion

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

Up Up and Away STNP Costs Already Escalating

The price for the South Texas Nuclear Project expansion just went up by $4 billion, now at $17 billion. Toshiba (the designer) apparently cannot agree on the price - thus the City of San Antonio is re-thinking this - and postponing their decision on whether to invest in 20 to 40 percent of the expansion. This is absolutely amazing, since nuclear proponents insist (indeed, shout it from the rooftops!) that Toshiba's Japanese nuclear plants are old technology by now - with modular construction and known costs. Apparently not! Stay tuned in Texas!

see this and this link.

This is an amazing jump in the price, roughly 33 percent, and construction has not yet started! When one adds in the inevitable delays, unforeseen conditions, change orders, escalations for materials, services, and labor, then interest on the construction loans, plus legal costs, this plant (if it ever gets built) will easily cost $25 to $30 billion.

And that is why nuclear power plants make zero sense in the USA.

New Nuclear Plants US Scorecard

Well, it has been quite an interesting few days for me. As my two regular readers will have observed, some nuclear nuts are in an uproar over my blog post (from April 8, 2009) titled Nuclear Nuts. Apparently, they are unhappy with the graph I posted that definitively shows a state's electric power price increases as the percent of power from nuclear plants increases. They are also dumbfounded that the state with the highest percentage of nuclear power, Vermont, has one of the highest power prices in the country. All these facts go against their long-held beliefs.

Facts are stubborn things.

There is also some controversy over the construction cost of new nuclear power plants, with some nuclear nuts claiming the costs as put forth by Craig Severance were discredited. Perhaps so, but only in their own minds and to their own satisfaction. I have, as I wrote elsewhere on my energyguysmusings blog, carefully checked Severance's figures and agree that he has it just about right.

Further, major utilities have published their own cost estimates for new nuclear power plants in the U.S. and their numbers are not far below those of Severance.

Therefore, I set up this blog post to keep score, as it were. The proposed nuclear power plants in the U.S. will each get a paragraph or maybe more, and a summary table will show the estimated cost and initial schedule for completion, then cost increases as time passes, and the final cost plus years behind schedule.

I will also keep track of the investments in each new nuclear plant's customer base of non-grid-based power, such as wind, solar, cogeneration, distributed generation, and combined heat and power. If any new nuclear plants ever do start up, there will be a rude awakening for the nuclear plant owners. Their customers will not pay for their outrageous power price, but will instead self-generate via the many alternatives now available. The nuclear plants' owners will be in quite a fix, as their customer base shrinks and shrinks. Their only move at that point is to increase their power prices to their remaining customers, thus giving even more incentive to go off the grid and self-generate. Thus, the nuclear death spiral occurs again as it did in Louisiana in the 1980s.

To begin the listing, here is the summary table.

Proposed

Plant Site .......State.........Output...Cost Estimate.....Final Cost....Years Late

South Texas

Nuclear Project......Texas......2700 MW.....$10 - 1317 Billion..... Later..... Later

Florida Power

and Light...............Florida.....2200 MW.....$17 Billion............Later .... Later

Georgia Power

Vogtle Plant..........Georgia...2200 MW......$14 Billion...........Later..... Later

Individual Plant summaries.

STNP is proposed as a doubling of the existing plant, by building two new reactors not far from Victoria, Texas, just a small distance from the mouth of the Colorado River. This plant is controversial because it consumes precious and scarce river water in drought-stricken South Texas. Thirsty people get rather cranky, especially when they know that their local nuclear power plant is literally vaporizing vast quantities of fresh water into the air. This plant is also infamous, as the original two reactors cost SIX times the initial cost estimate ($5.4 billion final cost vs $900 million initial cost) and was several years late in completion. Lawsuits were filed all around. Currently, a Japanese company who sells reactors and reactor technology is part of a joint venture to build the new reactors. Their cost estimate is $5 billion each, or a total of $10 billion - yet that was recently updated (increased) to $13 billion, to account for interest during construction. They also state they will complete the plant expansion in four years after receiving their COL (Construction and Operating License) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We shall see. UPDATE: San Antonio city leaders are receiving loud and numerous messages to not buy into the STNP expansion. Oct 13: CPS Energy's board, the San Antonio municipal utility, voted to issue $400 million in bonds to fund development of the expansion, but passed a resolution to reduce the city's ownership to 20 to 25 percent, rather than 40 percent. The city council will vote on this (ratify) on October 29. This puts NRG, the project proponent, in the bad position of having to find a buyer for the remaining 20 percent. Will be interesting to see who is willing to do this, and if the San Antonio city council votes to approve or deny the city's participation. (Oct 28, 2009): The price just went up by $4 billion, now at $17 billion. Toshiba apparently cannot agree on the price - and City of San Antonio is re-thinking this - and postponing their decision. This is absolutely amazing, since nuclear proponents insist (indeed, shout it from the rooftops!) that Japanese nuclear plants are old technology by now - with modular construction and known costs. Apparently not! Stay tuned in Texas!

And now (Jan 21, 2010), City of San Antonio via its CPS entity is suing the venture of NRG and Toshiba. Never a good sign when the supposed partners in a multi-billion dollar venture go to court so early in the game. This project may not yet be fully dead, but it is certainly comatose. The price issue was to be resolved sometime in January, 2010, which is any day now.

FP&L is proposed as a two-reactor plant at Turkey Point with each reactor 1,100 MW. This was recently approved (August 2009) by the state of Florida, and now awaits approval for COL from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Florida is interesting because of the vast potential for power from the Gulf Stream offshore Miami. Such a power plant could easily provide all of Florida's power forever, with zero risk of radiation, and zero operating cost except for maintenance.

FP&L was dealt a serious blow this week (Jan 21, 2010) when the Public Utility Commission denied their $1.3 billion rate increase request, and instead awarded approximately $75 million. This effectively kills the nuclear project, or at the best (for nuclear proponents) postpones the project for a few years. The price will only increase with time, as materials and labor costs increase.

Georgia Power's Vogtle plant is also a two-reactor plant with each reactor 1,100 MW. This plant recently (August 2009) received an Early Site Permit from federal regulators, which merely allows some preliminary site preparation to commence. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet to issue a COL. However, the utility states they will be finished with construction by 2017. Such optimism, both on the cost estimate of $14 billion, and the schedule!

Stay tuned, sports fans. This game will take a while to play out, but the action is bound to be interesting!

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Republican Plan to Increase U.S. Nuclear Plants

The Republicans at the national level have released their plan to provide energy in the U.S., and it includes building 100 new nuclear power plants within the next 20 years. I am a conservative Republican, but I cannot support such a proposal. Actually, I am a Compassionate Rational Consequentialist, but that is a subject for another day.

As I have shown before, increasing the percentage of the nation's power derived from nuclear power plants increases average electric power price (see this link and scroll down to "is nuclear power affordable". Pay particular attention to the chart I provide). When the true cost of new plants is included, the power price will escalate to 30 or even 40 percent more than its present cost.

The horrible consequences of such a massive increase in electric power rates fall especially hard on the poor, the elderly, those on fixed incomes, and those just barely getting by paycheck to paycheck.

New nuclear power plants will cost from $8 to $10 billion per 1,000 MW, with the power produced at 30 t0 40 cents to pay for the plants (on an un-subsidized basis). This is absolute nuttiness when so many preferable alternatives exist.

It is far better to install natural gas fired combined cycle plants, and burn our abundant and cheap natural gas. It is better still to install wind turbines with gas plants as backup, or solar, and install underwater turbines to generate power from ocean currents. There are at least seven alternatives to consider for grid-scale power storage, as I wrote about here.

One hundred more nuclear power plants at $10 billion each would cost 1,000 Billion, or $1 trillion. The same amount of power can be provided by natural gas at one-eighth the cost, or approximately $120 billion. It is elementary economics that it would be a waste of capital resources to waste money on nuclear power plants.

In any event, no investor in their right mind will build a new nuclear plant in the U.S. without government subsidies. It is of great concern to me that Toshiba, a Japanese company, has formed a partnership with a U.S. company to build their nuclear plant design in south Texas, to double the capacity of the infamous South Texas Nuclear Project. It is quite possible that Toshiba will absorb the losses and cost overruns to be able to state that the project cost only $5 billion per reactor, as advertised.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.