Texas can take lessons from Finland's nuclear power plant delays

[jpak]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-finnuclear_21bus.ART0.State.Edition1.4a5e710.html

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The round-the-clock shifts are trying to resurrect nuclear power, an energy option that fell out of favor in 1986 when the Soviet Union's Chernobyl reactor exploded.

The revival is not going well.

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The new Olkiluoto plant is struggling with cost overruns and delays. These are especially vexing in Finland's deregulated electricity market, where utilities can't just pass on the added costs without risking a flight of customers to other power suppliers. The plant is at least two years behind schedule.

TVO, the Finnish utility buying the plant for $3.4 billion, expects the French and German builders to eat cost overruns and replacement power purchases. Those are likely to be well above $1 billion. The builders, in turn, blame the utility, and the two sides are headed to arbitration.

These sorts of problems exasperated North Texas ratepayers 20 years ago when the twin Comanche Peak nuclear plants in Glen Rose were under construction. Costs ballooned from $800 million to more than $11 billion. Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings Corp., now working in a deregulated Texas market, has applied to the federal government for licenses to build two more nuclear plants at Comanche Peak with hopes it can avoid Finland's struggles.

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