Thank you to Scott Stapf of the Hastings Group, for the tweet above, and link to the Feb. 2012 SACE press release, "Groups: Nearly $1 Billion Vogtle Nuclear Reactor Cost Overrun Echoes Earlier Warning About 'Boondoggle' Project."
The cost overruns, and schedule delays, have only mounted over the past five years. Thus, the risks to $8.3 billion in federal taxpayer-backed nuclear loan guarantees have only increased. This is 15 times the amount of money lost in the Solyndra solar loan guarantee default.
Critics of the nuclear loan guarantee program warned about such risks in May 2001, when the Cheney Energy Task Force Report first floated the proposal of nuclear loan guarantees; again in 2005 when nuclear loan guarantees were made legal by passage of the Energy Policy Act; and again in 2007, when Congress and George W. Bush approved more than $20 billion worth of new reactor loan guarantees; and again leading up to the 2014 Obama administration approval of the $8.3 billion nuclear loan guarantee for Vogtle 3 and 4, without requiring any skin in the game by any of the companies involved -- an economic moral hazard with a radioactive twist!