S.C. utilities knew of big problems 6 months into nuclear project but didn't tell customers

COLUMBIA — Just six months after the first concrete was poured at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in 2013, project partners SCANA and Santee Cooper were taking their contractors to task for costly delays — and they were getting ready to lawyer up.

In a previously undisclosed email, SCANA's former CEO Kevin Marsh warned Westinghouse that both South Carolina utilities had serious concerns about cost overruns and design delays that put "potentially unrecoverable stress" on the existing construction schedule to add two nuclear reactors.

Westinghouse's response a year later was simple: SCANA and Santee Cooper knew what they signed up for when they agreed to pay for the first-of-their-kind reactors.

The two utilities knew that Westinghouse didn't have a finished design when they inked a deal in 2008, Westinghouse CEO Danny Roderick explained in a July 2014 letter obtained by The Post and Courier. They understood Westinghouse was finishing the design when construction began in 2012. Everyone understood, he said, that a large number of engineering changes might be "a normal part of the construction process."

Read more: https://www.postandcourier.com/business/s-c-utilities-knew-of-big-problems-months-into-nuclear/article_0340cb3a-208e-11e8-8b74-971e7fda2095.html