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Nuclear project’s price tag continues to soar
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Austin Monitor
The City of
The Austin City Council rejected participation in the NRG Energy project last February based on anticipated costs.
On Tuesday afternoon, the San Antonio Express-News reported that the San Antonio City Council would postpone until at least January a vote on $400 million in bonds to continue financing expansion of the plant. CPS Energy has already spent about $280 million on planning and engineering for the project.
In a press release Tuesday, the Austin-based SEED Coalition (Sustainable Energy & Economic Development) said basically, “We told you so,” noting that their expert had pegged the cost of the project at $12-17.5 billion a year and a half ago.
Mayor Julián Castro told the Express-News that he and the rest of the council might not have found out about the cost surge but for the direct questioning of CPS Interim General Manager Steve Bartley by one of the mayor’s aides. Bartley said he plans to go to
The estimate in 2007 was $5.4 billion. CPS Energy, San Antonio’s city-owned energy utility, currently is a half partner in the proposed nuclear units, but its board recently decided to limit CPS Energy’s stake in the two new units to between 20 and 25 percent, meaning CPS Energy and its partner, NRG Energy of New Jersey, will have to find at least one more partner.
Units 1 and 2 of the nuclear plant were the focus of ongoing controversy, particularly in
When
Now, it appears that cost would have been closer to $2.7 billion if the $17 billion price tag were correct.
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