Judge Tosses Criminal Charges Against South Carolina Nuclear Executive - But Case May Continue (apnews.com) 41
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:
A judge has ordered criminal charges dropped against the final executive accused of lying about problems building two nuclear reactors in South Carolina that were abandoned without generating a watt of power.
The judge tossed the charges Wednesday because ratepayers of the utility that lost billions of dollars on the project were improperly allowed on the grand jury that indicted Westinghouse Electric Co. executive Jeffrey Benjamin. But federal judge Mary Geiger Lewis also ruled that nothing is stopping prosecutors from properly seeking another indictment. "We're not going away," said assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday, who said prosecutors are still reviewing the ruling to decide their next steps...
The project fell apart in 2017 after nearly a decade of work, when executives and regulators determined construction of the reactors was so hopelessly behind schedule they could not get nearly $2 billion of tax breaks needed to help pay for the work. SCANA contracted with Westinghouse to build the reactors. Prosecutors said Benjamin , who was in charge of major projects, knew of delays and cost overruns but lied to regulators, utility executives and others. The lies led to electric rate increases while keeping the price of SCANA's stock from plummeting...
Two former SCANA executives have been sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to their roles in lying to ratepayers, regulators and investors. Former CEO Kevin Marsh received two years while chief operating officer Stephen Byrne was sentenced to 15 months. Former Westinghouse project director Carl Churchman has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents investigating the project's failure and is awaiting sentencing.
The project fell apart in 2017 after nearly a decade of work, when executives and regulators determined construction of the reactors was so hopelessly behind schedule they could not get nearly $2 billion of tax breaks needed to help pay for the work. SCANA contracted with Westinghouse to build the reactors. Prosecutors said Benjamin , who was in charge of major projects, knew of delays and cost overruns but lied to regulators, utility executives and others. The lies led to electric rate increases while keeping the price of SCANA's stock from plummeting...
Two former SCANA executives have been sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to their roles in lying to ratepayers, regulators and investors. Former CEO Kevin Marsh received two years while chief operating officer Stephen Byrne was sentenced to 15 months. Former Westinghouse project director Carl Churchman has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents investigating the project's failure and is awaiting sentencing.
This is how it should work. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:This is how it should work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, someone dropped the ball here by letting ratepayers onto the grand jury. Seems like that one is a pretty basic fuck-up.
It could have been the result of a poorly-written jury questionnaire or because some people lied, or failed to disclose properly, to get on the jury.
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I was called for jury duty once where one of the questions was if you had car insurance, and if so, with whom. A group of us got called for a potential civil trial jury, and one of the early questions from the judge was "do you have car insurance"... and almost the entire panel stood up. The judge and lawyers all kind of looked at each other, but made their notes and went on. Then we broke for lunch.
When we came back, both lawyers had packed everything up; the judge told us they'd all agreed that the poten
Re:This is how it should work. (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't retry someone the trial finds innocent; that's double jeopardy (and not the fun kind with Alex Trebek). But that's not what's happening here--the trial was canned before a verdict was ever reached.
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Well yes and no. A Grand Jury isn't very grand. It actually just decides if a suspect is indictable. It isn't the actual legal case where someone is decided guilty or innocent (where an impartial jury is absolutely critical). It is an almost pointless exercise, if a person is innocent then they should have no problem proving that.
Honestly the fact that they were arguing to abort this case on a technicality makes it sound like someone has a LOT to hide that they are very worried an actual jury in their actua
Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:2, Insightful)
Always the same crap with these scammers and their mindless fanbois: Massively over-promising, under-delivering and lying about problems.
Of course, the charges from the story should have been tossed (whoever vetted that Grand Jury screwed up badly), but that is besides the point.
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Always the same crap with these scammers and their mindless fanbois: Massively over-promising, under-delivering and lying about problems.
Of course, the charges from the story should have been tossed (whoever vetted that Grand Jury screwed up badly), but that is besides the point.
Cue up the nuclear is perfect if we'd just get rid of regulations crowd! Sorry fans - this had little to do with those pesky environmentalists or tree huggers.
It's always the next reactor that will be perfectly safe, and nuclear can't fail, only we can fail nuclear. And if anyone has concerns, they go nuts calling them stupid.
I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans.
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Sorry fans - this had little to do with those pesky environmentalists or tree huggers.
And little to do with nuclear. Could happen with any big project, and often does.
and nuclear can't fail, only we can fail nuclear. And if anyone has concerns, they go nuts calling them stupid.
Nice strawman, stupid.
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>silly
feel free to play "just a joke" card but you still posted a genuine nuclear statement either way
your indirect claim got called out in two forms and only one was an insult, "ad hominem" is when the insult substitutes for statement
feel free to insist that reacting to a claim is Triggered, seems superfluous when we're all aware every response in human history was triggered by a prior assertion
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I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans.
I would say it is probably even possible by humans if you select the right people to do it. Of course, it will be even more a complete economic disaster than existing nukes. The only place where nukes could make sense is in space. The nuclear mafia/"industry" are not people that can do it on the ground though. They want maximum profits, maximum subsidies and if anything fails, for the taxpayer to pay for all damage.
Re:Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Navy does a pretty good job with nuclear power. But they take safety and security seriously.
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The US Navy does a pretty good job with nuclear power. But they take safety and security seriously.
Yes. They have good designs, highly motivated and well trained people operating as a closely bonded team, and fewer bean counters to get in the way of such critical devices.
There's a genie in that reactor. A strong and angry energy dense genie. And it wants out! It is a certain mechanical operation, not too complicated as long as we know the rules. All parts must be extremely strong, all radiation hardening is critical. Understanding neutron created problems is important. You have to seal the genie in it
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not that i've studied past accidents in depth, but my impression was most were human carelessness that the harsher rigors of being in an armed forces would discipline against (maybe)
in material/engineering terms i suppose milspec is also generally described as resilient and reliable, but at extreme costs far beyond those words. i think they DO tend to design more idiot-proof though, no? feels like that would be the more impactful gain
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not that i've studied past accidents in depth, but my impression was most were human carelessness that the harsher rigors of being in an armed forces would discipline against (maybe)
The reason Naval reactors have never had an accident is because their reactors are purpose designed. Civilian reactors take this existing sub design, scale it up, and make it 10x more complex by adding a bunch of probably unnecessary "safety" systems (in addition to the ones already present that do the actual job already). And no, I don't mean additional backups. I mean making up theoretical problems that nobody has ever seen before and adding a complex system for handling that. Its great at making jobs
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On ships.
Which is a completely different technology.
As a car analogy: the difference is as close as between an ICE and EV car ...
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Naval reactors are very different from commercial reactors though. They are wildly expensive, even by nuclear standards.
There are good reasons why naval reactor technology has not been adopted by commercial plant designers. Nuclear is already unaffordable, and making the problem even worse isn't going to help.
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They can waste a lot of money on it that the civilian sector just does not have or needs to invest smarter. Sure, if you do not mind massive price rises for electricity, several times that what new renewables plus storage costs, you can do civilian nuclear power safely. But it makes absolutely no sense to do it.
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I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans.
I would say it is probably even possible by humans if you select the right people to do it. Of course, it will be even more a complete economic disaster than existing nukes. The only place where nukes could make sense is in space. The nuclear mafia/"industry" are not people that can do it on the ground though. They want maximum profits, maximum subsidies and if anything fails, for the taxpayer to pay for all damage.
Yes, it is odd for such a safe power source to be unable to insure itself, so we had to enact the Price Anderson act to cover any damage over 450 million. Didn't anyone tell them that nuc plants won't have accidents?
Just as a note - this reactor gobbled up 9 billion dollars for a return of nothing. There is another reactor in Georgia that did go online recently. It was 34 Billion dollars, 17 billion dollars over budget. 9 billion here, 17 billion there - after a while it gets to be real money! 8^)
Re: Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:2)
> Just as a note - this reactor gobbled up 9 billion dollars for a return of nothing.
Well hardly nothing. I mean, you are a nuclear contractor right? Sure I bid 20 billion low, but itâ(TM)s nuclear. Change orders under 100 million get rubber stampedâ¦my marketing and lobbying money has earned me more digits than i have fingers and toes and _____.
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> Just as a note - this reactor gobbled up 9 billion dollars for a return of nothing.
Well hardly nothing. I mean, you are a nuclear contractor right? Sure I bid 20 billion low, but itâ(TM)s nuclear. Change orders under 100 million get rubber stampedâ¦my marketing and lobbying money has earned me more digits than i have fingers and toes and _____.
Might work once or twice.
Re: Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:4, Informative)
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Not to mess up your fantasy, but there is a $75B nuclear insurance fund paid for by nuclear power providers. This public fund backs nuclear providers as in where money would come from to handle any cleanup from a disaste
$75 billion. So that's what? A third of the cost of cleanup for Fukushima?
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Not to mess up your fantasy, but there is a $75B nuclear insurance fund paid for by nuclear power providers. This public fund backs nuclear providers as in where money would come from to handle any cleanup from a disaster. But do go on with your anti-nuclear fantasies. I'm sure all those engineers are wrong and solar and wind really are powered by fairy dust.
It's interesting that you call the Price Anderson act my "fantasy". 75 Billion? If one of these bad boys goes kaboom, your 75 billion will be used up in a short time. Oh - by the way - exactly who funds the partially covering insurance policy that they pay? We do that's who. Thats the problem there homie. Minor problems are just like other industries problems. that 75 billion would cover minor problems okay.
Problem is, when things go really bad at a nuc station, they make for a real, expensive, and lon
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Yes, it is odd for such a safe power source to be unable to insure itself, so we had to enact the Price Anderson act to cover any damage over 450 million. Didn't anyone tell them that nuc plants won't have accidents?
That is actually a lie the nuclear mafia came up with to obscure the real cost of this technology and the real magnitude of the risks. You _can_ insure nuclear reactors. But the premium would be so massively high that even the most stupid person would immediately understand that this tech does not make any sense at all. Friend of mine was a chief risk modeler at a major back-insurer and told me this story. What they would have done is simply spread the risk over a larger number of back-insurers and that can
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I would say it is probably even possible by humans if you select the right people to do it.
The Chinese. They are massively expanding their nuclear fleet quite effectively, and this is why they are the next great power. They can build stuff you can only cry about.
Re:Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The two new Chinese reactors were built by...wait for it...Westinghouse, a US company. It really is magic when the NRC isn't involved in a nuclear project. It magically just works on time and on budget. It is almost like people are playing politics with nuclear regulations. I'm sure that has absolutely no negative consequences at all.
China has its own version of the Westinghouse AP1000 design, the CAP1000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Should be cookie-cutter but I'm not sure the west even allows such a thing.
Re:Oh yes. Great, cheap, fast to build nuclear... (Score:4, Funny)
"I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans."
The S5W, S6G, S8G, and A4W reactor systems would disagree, I didn't build one of them, but I did operate an S5W engine room and also took care of its water chemistry.
I assure you I am human.
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We use a reactor design made for subs and then rube goldburg the hell out of it. The fact that it is still the safest form of power by watts generated despite this fact shows that it is indeed the safest form of power. Just imagine what we could do if we actually could make the designs we know will work better and safer than what we made in the early 1950s.
Don't confuse your own failings for what the rest of us are capable of. Also, if you actually cared about this issue you would have done some research
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We use a reactor design made for subs and then rube goldburg the hell out of it. The fact that it is still the safest form of power by watts generated despite this fact shows that it is indeed the safest form of power. Just imagine what we could do if we actually could make the designs we know will work better and safer than what we made in the early 1950s.
Don't confuse your own failings for what the rest of us are capable of.
My failings? My career has been pissing off people when I let them know of the possibilities of what can go wrong, point them out, and am in a position where they have to do as I tell them. There are more worlds than the commercial generation of nuclear power, and my world is not the Navy based generation, but something similar.
Could I make a safe reactor? In the commercial profit seeking sector, I think that the Managers and suits would not allow that. I'd be told by the head bean counter that I needed
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I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans.
Even if, it seems that without massive subsidies (because that is what the "tax breaks" are) no-one can build a nuclear reactor that is actually financially viable.
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I've always said that it is possible to build a really solid and safe nuc reactor power system. Just not by humans.
Even if, it seems that without massive subsidies (because that is what the "tax breaks" are) no-one can build a nuclear reactor that is actually financially viable.
I agree 100 percent. That's one of the things that killed that plant. The Guvmint decided to cut them loose. Good to see that the "sunk cost" fallacy isn't universal.
As I noted in another post, South Carolina probably looked at the 34 billion dollar plant in Georgia that only just started generating electricity after 17 billion overrun, and thought - our nuc is going the same way, do we really want to do this? Let's not forget that two of the three people running the project are in jail already for lying
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You went off the rails when you started talking about safety. Nuclear reactors are incredibly safe, not only in the historical context but especially in the current context that makes the historical disasters largely irrelevant.
We *can* and we *do* build safe reactors. We just can't do it in a cost or time effective way.
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I agree but in a more expansive way: I see the same trend happening in *many* industries and sectors, over the last 3 or 4 decades as the enshittification marches on and people's pockets continue to get picked. And having been observing politics since Nixon, it always makes me giggle when some partisan dumbfuck tries to blame everything on the other team, or on any particular administration.
Right ruling, but bit of an odor to the details. (Score:2)
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That is an incredibly short sighted view of what it means to be "state" "elite" or "top shelf lawyer". All three of them are fundamentally people (well except maybe the last group). The state can make mistakes. The elites can get some insanely bad lawyers (see Trump), and top shelf lawyers can do some incredibly stupid things, heck even judges are sometimes disrobed for their conduct.
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It's hardly news that rich-people trial lawyers prefer to play inside-baseball. Not saying that necessarily
Can you eliminate the bias? (Score:2)
That's what this ruling boils down to. There was clear risk of bias on the jury. Could this be solved by relocating the trial to a different part of the country (not California)? Possibly. By the same token, one could argue that there is always bias when you allow local people to be on juries or to investigate or audit things. Case in point: whatever you believe about Trump, you have to see that there's no way you could get an unbiased grand jury in DC. By the same token, why would you allow an electi