This is Called a Death Rattle

Billions over budget, and over a decade late, the first nuclear power plant built in the US since the last century has come on line.

The customers of Georgia Power are going to be paying through the nose for this for years.

I worked briefly in nuclear power, on the back end of the fuel cycle, and it will never be viable for commercial use.

Even if everything is done right, and frequently it is not done right, it is ridiculously expensive even with the heavy subsidies:

It's more than half a decade late coming online and has cost billions more than estimated, but Georgia Power's Vogtle Unit 3, the first US nuclear reactor built from scratch this century, has finally come online.

Located near Waynesboro, Georgia, the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant's third reactor will supply an estimated 500,000 homes and businesses in the region with power. Utility companies in Georgia, Florida and Alabama all receive electricity generated by Vogtle's existing reactors, the first two of which came online in the late 1980s, and a fourth power facility is due to come online within the next year.

"Today's achievement … marks the first day of the next 60 to 80 years that Vogtle Unit 3 will serve our customers with clean, reliable energy." said Georgia Power CEO, chairman and president Kim Greene. Georgia Power said its overall energy mixture is now approximately 25 percent nuclear.

Construction on Vogtle 3, and its sister reactor Vogtle 4, began in 2009, making it the first nuclear reactor built from the ground up this century, but not the first new reactor in the last 23 years.

That honor belongs to Tennessee-based Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, which brought its second reactor online in 2016. Watts Bar Unit 2 began construction in 1972, but was paused in 1985. Construction wasn't resumed until 2007, and took another nine years to finish.

With Vogtle 3 online, Georgia Power is now turning to the completion of Vogtle 4, which it believes will be ready late in the fourth quarter of 2023 or early 2024. Once Unit 4 is online, Vogtle's total output will make it the "largest generator of clean energy" in the US, Georgia Power said.

"Largest generator," of nuclear power in the US?  Here's an investment tip:  If you can bet on their bankruptcy, it's a pretty good bet.

After all, one of the causes for the delay was the bankruptcy of the plant manufacturer, Westinghouse.