ML19220C701
| ML19220C701 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 04/24/1979 |
| From: | Omang J WASHINGTON POST |
| To: | |
| References | |
| PR-790424, NUDOCS 7905140050 | |
| Download: ML19220C701 (1) | |
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Chairman of Nuclear Utility Fears Sharp RiseinInvestment Charges By Joanne Omang Y ly go into the rates that customers would ' revent the firm from going w.cunston ro. start w p
r pay "so consumers wind up paying bankrupt.
'all4treet !s likely to hit nuclear one way or another
- utnities with a 20 percent rise in the cost of new capital unless the utilities He and other industry spokesmen Earlier, Pennsylvania Gov. Richard are pernutted to charge their cus-said it would be better to arrange Thornburgh told the suocommittee that some way to distribute the "conse-his decision not to order an evacuation tomers for accidents hke Three Mile quential damages" from any nuclear from the area around Three Mile Is!and Island, a Senate subcommittee was accident-in short, the costs of re-was "the toughest decision of all." De told yesterday, placement power-in some nationwide question preoccupied him far 10 days, he said.
William G.
Kuhns. chairman of pool of consumers "The store we can General Public Utiliti?s Corp.. the spread it out, the more equitable it His biggest problem was the same o'te parent firm of the Pennsylvania,util.
would seein to me," Kuhes said.
angered the Nuclear Regulatory that ity that operates Three Mile Island, Subcommittee chairmin Gary Hart Commission in Washington: getting com.
said the extra charges would be the
.(D-Colm) said he was "dumbfounded" plcte sad a;curgs information, he investment communitfs prfte for
.having to swallow the costs of ve-by. Kuhns' view. "This Ts not an Rt said. Dere was a " garble gap" between of God or 3 natural disaster. If
'Harrisburg, Pa., and Washington while placing lost nuclear power with elec-costs go to the consumer, wha't lethe MetropoJRan : Edison, he raid, " issued tricity.from oil and coal.
ver statements in the early days that proved At the moment, Pennsylvania regu.. is there to guarantee (company] per-formance?" Hart asked-to be something less than accurate."
lators are net permitting those fuel - Kuhn suggested that utuhr man-nornburgh said he remained con-costs'to be passed on to consumers, '.agement personnel be held responsi-vinced that mass evacuation would have which means the company's stock-holders will have to pick up the tab.
~.ble in the future, but that customers caused more death and injury than it That will make tae company's bond t will have to pay this time. "It would would have saved.
and stock issues less desirable on, do no good to bankrupt GPU and "If I knew then what I know now, destroy 177,000 stockholders," he said.
I still would not Dave ort!ered an Wall Street unless at pays more interest.
At stake is $24 million per msnth for evacuation," he said.
He proposed that the federal gov.
replacement power and. 38 million Kuhns estimated after the hearing that the surcharge could be.3200 mil-monthly for other fixed costs at nree ernment license utility company ex-lion a year industrywide and Said Mile Island, Kuhns said. It will be 31e ecutives, requiring them to be com-mil?lon less when Three Mile Island 1 petent personally to operate nuclear absorb lt anyway. Thatconsumers wuuld eventually have to - returns to service, but TMI 2 win be power plants.
Sen. Alan R. Simpson (R.Wyo.)
amount as-out for at least two to three years, he asked whether inspections conducted sumes the traditional pattern of a said.
$10 b.111on yearly construction budget and about 31 billion a year in finance Walske, head of the atomic forum.
at Three Mile Ialand 2 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission March 1423 charges, Kuhns said.
the nuclear indu.try trade assoetation, and again March 23,-two drys before aaid utinties had ordered nuclear planta the accident, had spotted the fac+. that However, another witness, Carl Walske, president of the Atomic In-on the assumption that consumers would crucial auxiliary pump vale dustnal Forum, told the-Senate nu. handle all repIscement power costs un-clear regulatcry subcommittee that der the fuel adjustment clause. "Now closed. That error, uncorrec's were ed for
'elght minutes, contributed heavtly to they [ utilities] sre uncertain as to the utilities are unlikely to order any whether they'll be bankWpted or not the acu4ent.
more nuclear plants until the ques-by even a low-risk accident " he said, GPU President Herman Dieekamp tion of financial risk is resolved.
admitted that "those two valves Kuhns said: "It has nevet been sug-
"You're unlikely to see more new orders gested that risks of this nature should of nuclear power plants tmtfl this ques-should have been open. It clearly was be la.id on the stockholder." To do so tion of risk sharing % resolved."
a failure on our part that they were not open."
would set a precedent in which Wall ne Pennsylvania Public Utillty Com-Street investors, wary of the riska mission last week frore rates for six An NRC spokesman said later that although the inspection results had months at Metropoiltan Edison Co.,
from any nuclear plant seeldent, would jack up their finance charges which owns nree MHe Island, sospend-not been written up at the time of the accident, personnel ' involved in it to nuclear utilities for any construe-ing a $43 mdlion rate increase previous.
ly granted.
were still on the scene at Harrisburg tion whatsoever, even of nonnuclear and facilitas he said.
The company will be expected to re-were able to inform officials The rise, - Kuhns said, would be cover the costs of cleanup and damage there that nothing they had seen was I
about 20 percent and would ultimate-to its property from insurance, which involved in the incident. Routine in.
spections do not normally deal with the comnussioners indicated they thought valve positions, the spokesman said.
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