Dive Summary:

• Philip Hayet, a financial analyst and consultant for the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), testified in a written statement Tuesday that finishing the new nuclear reactors at Southern Co.’s Vogtle plant is still the best financial option but that the project is more costly than constructing a natural gas plant. 
• "If a decision had to be made today to build a new nuclear project, it would not be justified on the basis of these results,” Hayet explained before Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC).
• But analysts have been warning the commission about the unfavorable economics of new reactors since before they approved it: “Given the history of significant nuclear power plant cost overruns and all the risks discussed above concerning construction of the Units, there is very little, if any, capacity for the project to absorb cost overruns and still provide benefit to the Company’s ratepayers,” PSC attorney Jeffrey Stair and Daniel Walsh of the Attorney General’s office wrote in 2009.

From the article:

“So far, Plant Vogtle has not hurt Southern Co. financially. As a regulated monopoly, it can bill its customers for its project costs, unless elected regulators decide the spending was egregious and forbid it. “