Skip to main content

Saving Iowans “An Incredible Amount of Money”

By

iowa-farm2 We wrote yesterday about Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s support for nuclear energy. It looks like the legislature there is about to act on that support:

The chairman of the Iowa House commerce committee says there's enough support to move a bill that sets out how a new nuclear power plant would be built in the state.

"I still sense there's a lot of support on this bill, especially because there are concerns with a lack of new (energy) generation in this state," said Rep. Chuck Soderberg, R-Le Mars.

That’s from today, so we should know soon how it goes. This story doesn’t actually explain the bill. This one does:

The Iowa Legislature would have to pass a bill to allow the change in energy rates because MidAmerican, even though it's a privately-owned company, doesn't have the authority to set its own rates -- instead regulators set the prices the company can charge, Fehrman said.

At first, I thought this was to implement CWIP - Construction Work in Progress – which allows utilities to charge ratepayers a nominal amount extra to pay for a power plant while it is being built (which benefits customers because it saves on finance charges accrued during construction) and it is, sort of.

This discussion follows a law passed last year that allowed MidAmerican to charge customers a total of $15 million to pay for a three-year study looking into the viability of building a nuclear plant in Iowa.

So, presumably, the company wants to do this without taking out a loan, which would cost customers more.

"Any money that customers pay up front -- it could be a small percentage increase -- but in the long run it will save the customers an incredible amount of money if we can get nuclear done," [state Sen. Randy] Feenstra said.

Yes, that’s CWIP, though not exactly for a construction project.

So, early days for this effort. But with the governor on-board, it’ll be interesting to see if this passes both houses in the next weeks. Fingers crossed.

It’s a barn and windmill – hey! – in Iowa.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more