Noose tightens again around criminal activities and nuclear power

Just two days after arrests were made in Ohio related to criminal racketeering that ensured the owners of two failing nuclear plants got massive state subsidies, an arrest has been made in South Carolina over another nuclear-related conspiracy.

As The State reports: Stephen Byrne, a top executive of the now-defunct SCANA electric utility, pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal conspiracy fraud charges in federal court in Columbia.

Byrne’s guilty plea showed that SCANA’s downfall — triggered by a failed $9 billion effort to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County — was the result of not just mismanagement or incompetence, but criminal conduct at the company’s highest levels. 

SCANA, a Fortune 500 publicly traded company whose business lineage traced back to 1846, was one of the crown jewels of South Carolina’s economy. But the failure of its effort to build two nuclear reactors at its plant in Jenkinsville led to multiple lawsuits and mounting financial troubles. Eventually the company was absorbed by Dominion Energy. SCANA’s downfall is perhaps the most costly business failure in state history."

Tom Clements, a longtime anti-nuclear campaigner involved closely in this fight to see restitution made to South Carolina's defrauded ratepayers, was present at the announcement of the arrest, which he welcomed. But he warned that Dominion Energy, which took over SCANA, "will file a rate-hike request next month and the cost to ratepayers for the nuclear construction debacle will go up." Read more.