Duke Energy to close damaged nuclear plant

[Capt Worley PE]

RALEIGH — The largest U.S. electricity company said Tuesday it will permanently close a Florida nuclear power plant after botched repairs and use $835 million from an insurance settlement to refund consumers forced to pay for higher-cost replacement power.

But Charlotte-based Duke Energy also said it will seek to recoup from customers its $1.65 billion investment in the Crystal River Nuclear Plant, about 70 miles north of Tampa. The company said it is starting a closing process that may take 60 years before the nuclear site is decontaminated and dismantled and considering whether to build a new, natural-gas-fueled power plant to replace the power lost.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/02/06/2620355/duke-energy-to-close-damaged-nuclear.html#storylink=cpy

 

[Flyer_PE]

I'm not surprised at this one. They would be in for one hell of an uphill battle for license extension and with only four years left and the current price of natural gas, money spent on repairs would stand a good chance of never being recovered.

 

[Dark Knight]

The guy that took the decision of making a hole in the concrete is now a VP somewhere. That is what happens when you have people with Arts and Communications degree making decisions that a Professional Engineer should make. It went from bad to worst after that. Ironically, the stock's prices are going up after yesterday's announcement.

 

[Supe]

The stock prices are going up because this was a commercial decision, and there's more to it than the desire to throw a combined cycle plant up in its wake.

Their options were to either repair Crystal River at X billion dollars and renew their operating license for a few years, or to shut down Crystal River, throw up a combined cycle at around $1B to hold them over a few years, and use the shut down of CR to leverage the push on the NRC to get a COL and permit site excavation work so that they can build two new units in Levy County, which would remain in operation much longer than Crystal River.

Personally, I think CR would have been the smarter move still, since the cost of building two new units based on the dollar figures I've seen is probably about 50% lower than what the actual build costs will be, but that's not my problem.

I do not think they will be successful on the rate hike, though.

 

[knight1fox3]

Very interesting, though as Flyer mentioned, not surprising. I guess CR is going to be moving some of the new equipment they recently purchased from us.

 

[ventilator]

I know some people who work(ed) at the plant, they have been calling it the crystal river spent fuel storage plant for the last year ever since they shut down generation. Hopefully they can find some new jobs.