The following link is an article about the Georgia nuclear plant that went online today, with another one due to go online in March 2024. There were several cost overruns, as well as delays.
What the article gets incredibly wrong is when it says that solar and wind are less expensive. Viewed myopically, that is true. However, solar and wind cannot run the utility system without batteries and the batteries drive the cost of solar and wind through the roof and make them far more expensive than the $15.5 billion per nuclear plant. Additionally, the spinning generation of the nuclear plants provides far more grid stability than the solar and wind.
The first US nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia
By JEFF AMY
Associated Press
7/31/23
ATLANTA (AP) — The first American nuclear reactor to be built from scratch in decades is sending electricity reliably to the grid, but the cost of the Georgia power plant could discourage utilities from pursuing nuclear power as a path to a carbon-free future.
Georgia Power Co. announced Monday that Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, has completed testing and is now in commercial operation, seven years late and $17 billion over budget.
At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity, Unit 3 can power 500,000 homes and businesses. A number of other utilities in Georgia, Florida and Alabama are receiving the electricity, in addition to the 2.7 million customers of Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power.
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