Energy Probe

Norm Rubin with the Toronto-based energy watchdog group Energy Probe  says he is concerned that NB Power might be forced to go too far in cost-cutting efforts in order to freeze the power rate, postponing such things as required maintenance. "You have to be careful that you don't put too much financial pressure on a utility, especially one that's always been Crown-owned and hasn't been pressed before," he said.

Norm Rubin with Toronto-based energy watchdog group Energy Probe said he was concerned NB Power might be forced to go too far in efforts to cut costs in order to freeze the power rate, postponing such things as maintenance.

"You have to be careful that you don't put too much financial pressure on a utility, especially one that's always been Crown-owned and hasn't been pressed before," he said.

Norm Rubin, the director of nuclear research at Energy Probe, said it's conceivable that banks were involved as "lenders or facilitators," in that project but said he does not think any were involved as direct investors.

 "Maybe CIBC will join the list of gutsy nuclear cowboys that used to
have money - I hope not, you know, we need banks in Canada," he said.

"I don't expect it to go ahead, but then I was surprised when New Brunswick decided to go ahead," Norm Rubin, director of nuclear research for Energy Probe, said. "I think the message is pretty clear: The next time you get a report from your own utilities board that says it's a loser to invest in something nuclear that has a track record that looks like the underside of a rock, the next time you get that advice, take it."

Norm Rubin of the Toronto-based energy watchdog Energy Probe said he's not surprised by the added delays at Point Lepreau or the decision by Hydro-Quebec.

"People who look at this as a reliable source of power are destined to live in the dark," he said.

The New Brunswick government is in discussions with French-owned nuclear giant Areva about construction of a second reactor at Point Lepreau, the Telegraph-Journal has learned.

The New Brunswick government has renewed efforts to see a second nuclear reactor built in the province, but at least one industry observer doesn´t believe it will ever happen.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is paying out $100 million in extra costs for delays with nuclear refurbishment projects at Point Lepreau, N.B., and the Bruce plant in Ontario.

Delays in the $1.4-billion refurbishment of the Point Lepreau, N.B., nuclear power plant are hitting Canadians in the wallet, according to new documents released by the federal government.

 

The year 2016 may seem far off.

But as a key date in New Brunswick's plan to possibly expand its nuclear energy program, it is a looming deadline that must be acted on quickly, say those in the industry.

In the latter months of 2016, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Canada's nuclear crown corporation, hopes to place its first Advanced Candu Reactor (ACR) in a Canadian nuclear facility.

Fredericton: The New Brunswick government is expected to announce today its plans for a $1.4-billion refurbishing of its aging Point Lepreau nuclear power plant near Saint John.

The question is: How will the province do it without jolting consumers and businesses with hefty rate increases.

Earlier this month, the federal government rejected the province's request for a $400-million contribution to the project, saying such a grant would set an expensive precedent that would prompt other provinces to seek a similar deal.

Fredericton: New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord and members of his cabinet are meeting this afternoon to decide the future of the aging Point Lepreau nuclear power plant. At issue is whether to go ahead with a $1.4 billion refurbishment, and if so, how?

The province could partner with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, or Bruce Power of Ontario.

Cabinet ministers entering the meeting weren't offering many hints.

Federal taxpayers are on the verge of acquiring a new and potentially massive burden – paying electricity bills for consumers in provinces with the country's most mismanaged power systems.

Federal taxpayers are on the verge of acquiring a new and potentially massive burden – paying electricity bills for consumers in provinces with the country's most mismanaged power systems.

Fredericton: The New Brunswick government is looking for a major cash infusion from Ottawa for refurbishment of the aging nuclear power plant at Point Lepreau, N.B.

Bruce Fitch, New Brunswick's energy minister, said Friday that based on emission credits under the Kyoto accord, overhauling the 22-year-old reactor at Lepreau should be worth at least $400 million to Ottawa.

"The figure that is being tossed around of $400 million, that's not out of the question," Fitch said, adding it could be considerably more.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has cost federal taxpayers an estimated $17-billion in failed attempts to develop commercially viable nuclear reactors. Even the sales that AECL has made have proven to be wildly unprofitable, going back a generation to its perplexing reactor sale to Argentina, when AECL agreed to price its contract in pesos. Today, the federal Crown corporation is poised to blow more billions.

A decision on whether to dump or fix up New Brunswick’s aging nuclear power plant could be swayed by a private firm’s plans to build a giant gas-fired generator, says the province’s energy minister.

Irving Oil, one of New Brunswick’s largest industries, announced this week that it plans to build a mega power plant in Saint John, N.B., using gas from a liquefied natural gas terminal.

Refurbishing NB Power's troubled Point Lepreau nuclear power station will cost New Brunswickers $3,373 per household if the assurances issued last week by the former chairman of the now bankrupt nuclear company British Energy hold true. If Ontario's recent nuclear refurbishment experience is repeated, the cost could exceed $9,000 per household.

The "Point Lepreau Refurbishment Review" authored by Dr. Robin Jeffrey, contains serious information gaps and analytical errors.

On Dec. 23, 2003, the new Ontario Liberal government appointed James Hankinson to the board of Ontario Power Generation. Mr. Hankison was the CEO of the provincial Crown corporation NB Power from 1996-2002.

Letter to the Editor:

Before New Brunswick commits to a megaproject overhaul of the Point Lepreau nuclear reactor, take a look at the mess with AECL's MAPLE reactor projects and the commercial disaster happening with the Ontario government's Pickering A project.

AECL's MAPLE reactor projects are now over three years behind schedule due to major safety deficiencies and shoddy construction.

The Point Lepreau nuclear generating station will likely get a new lease on life as part of Bernard Lord's overall plan to turn the Saint John region into New Brunswick's energy hub. "The odds are Lepreau will go ahead," said Mr. Lord during a short visit to the city Tuesday morning on day 18 of the provincial election campaign."It's an important project for southern New Brunswick."

Tom Adams provides a few suggestions to Mr. Don Dennison, Chairman of  New Brunswick Market Design Committee.

Myron Gordon and John Wilson, who have been working for various unions to promote nuclear power and a continuation of the Crown-owned electric monopolies, are advising New Brunswickers to continue their dependence on the trouble-prone Point Lepreau reactor and to avoid competition.

MONCTON -- New Brunswick would be foolish to throw any more money into Point Lepreau in light of the troubles now plaguing nuclear power giant British Energy, an Ontario-based energy observer says.

Tom Adams, who heads Energy Probe, said the British firm's current troubles should paint an important picture for NB Power and its proposed $845-million refurbishment for the New Brunswick nuclear generating station.

As NB Coal dismantles its cutting dragger before it gets shipped to Florida, some people in the Grand Lake area are wondering what happened to a community report on the future of the coal industry in the region.

The Lady of the Lake dragger was sold to a Florida operation for $1 million after sitting idle near Chipman for two years.

The piece of equipment was worth more than that, many people in Minto and Chipman believe, and they worry the provincial government is phasing out the coal operation sooner rather than later.

The ties that bind government to energy markets are beginning to loosen.

Yesterday in Saint John, Fredericton and Washington, D.C., things happened that will change how New Brunswickers buy, sell and use energy in the years to come.

The economy of Southern New Brunswick would be devastated if the 700 jobs at the Point Lepreau Nuclear plant are eliminated, the Public Utilities Board heard Monday.

"I believe closing Lepreau, if they don't refurbish, would have as big an impact on Saint John as if you closed both the pulp mills and the refinery," said Ross Galbraith, representing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Letters to the Editor:

Re: East Coast Gas Wars

 

Open borders and deregulation are on the agenda this morning at an energy conference in Saint John, where the New Brunswick government hosts the New England governors and the Eastern premiers in a long awaited free trade initiative.

The New England governors might have to wait longer.

New Brunswick's government has just decided to add a new item to the top of the agenda - how to cut off gas shipments to the United States.

Review of Financial Fitness, Institutional Certainty, and Investment Risk

Submitted to
New Brunswick Public Utilities Board
Concerning a Proposal to Refurbish the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station

Summary

FREDERICTON -- The New Brunswick government says it will have the backing of Quebec, at least one other Maritime government, and powerful Ontario interests when it makes its case to the National Energy Board for a guaranteed Canadian share of Sable Island gas reserves.

The Conservative government of Premier Bernard Lord is preparing for a hearing in July when it will pitch the cause of economic nationalism versus the lure of U.S. dollars in its bid to get gas to northern New Brunswick and Quebec, rather than have it simply sold to the highest bidder.

Only two days after announcing a big budget surplus for 2001-02, the province may have to revise its numbers substantially thanks to a terrible year for NB Power.

In the legislature Tuesday, Finance Minister Peter Mesheau projected a surplus of $37 million for this fiscal year, with a further $70 million being transferred to the fiscal stabilization fund. But those numbers must have been inked before NB Power made its most recent estimates.

"NDP Leader Elizabeth Weir said that by advancing Point Lepreau's refurbishment date to 2006, NB Power made it hard for the Public Utilities Board to turn the refurbishment project down." Photo credit: David Nickerson/Telegraph-Journal.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and NB Power are so financially imperiled that either or both could disappear before they finish refurbishing Point Lepreau, nuclear watchdog Tom Adams warns.

"Why doesn't NB Power come clean and tell the people of the province just how financially precarious that operation is?" That's Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, the organization that tabled a devastating report on the Crown corporation in Fredericton last week.

It is dishonest to mislead the people on just what awaits them in terms of energy costs, says Mr. Adams, when a dramatic and unprecedented increase in power rates is inevitable. Well, why do they? One wonders.

Larry Chamney, Head
Program Management and Environmental Assessment Section
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
P.O. Box 1046, Station B
Ottawa, ON K1P 5S9

Dear Mr. Chamney:

Energy Probe’s comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment Guidelines for the proposed Point Lepreau Solid Radioactive Waste Modifications

The old Ontario Hydro was an epic disaster. Electricity bills in the province are about 35 per cent higher than they should be because consumers were forced to pick up the tab for $21-billion in liabilities that the Crown-owned utility could not pay off. The good news is that Ontario is unlikely to see a repeat of the financial horror story.

A two-year power rate freeze has ended as New Brunswickers are being hit with a three per cent hike in their power bill on April 1, and the increases may not stop there.

NB Power announced the $19-million rate increase yesterday after it finalized its 2002-2003 budget, which means homeowners will be seeing a three per cent power rate spike and commercial and wholesale buyers are facing an additional 1.5 per cent.

Electricity customers in New Brunswick and PEI face rate hikes possibly as high as 30 per cent to cover costs at the troubled Point Lepreau Candu nuclear power station unless NB Power gets permission from the provincial Public Utilities Board (PUB) and the government to invest $845 million to extend the reactor’s life expectancy. But, approving the refit megaproject creates the risk of an even worse financial crisis in future if the reactor fails to achieve the aggressive production targets expected by its owner, NB Power.

Natural Resources Minister Jeannot Volpé expects NB Power to learn from Ontario Hydro's experience, should it be given approval to refit the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is offering to team up with NB Power to extend the life of the nuclear station beyond 2006. The $845-million refurbishment project, which doesn't include having to spend $300 million on buying replacement power when Lepreau is offline for upgrading, would extend the life of the plant for 30 years.

Ontario Hydro had to kiss $410 million goodbye, thanks to a deal like the one that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is offering New Brunswick.

Ontario's former provincial power utility couldn't get money back from Atomic Energy's performance guarantee for two nuclear stations at Pickering, Ont. The guarantee is similar to one that Atomic Energy is offering New Brunswick for its proposed package for refurbishing the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station.

Lepreau the sequel will not go into cost overruns, like the original project, according to plans released by NB Power Monday.

Environmentalists are divided on whether NB Power should rebuild its nuclear power station at Point Lepreau.

The project's $845-million estimated cost could build an all-new natural gas-fired generator that could provide even more electricity than the refurbished nuclear power plant could, Tom Adams, executive director of the anti-nuclear group Energy Probe, said Monday.

Big industrial users of electricity and those in line for construction jobs want NB Power to spend $747 million converting Coleson Cove to burn Orimulsion.

But the province of New Brunswick, city of Saint John and environmental groups were not so supportive Monday as Public Utilities Board (PUB) hearings into the proposal ended.

Board chairman David Nicholson said he hopes to deliver an oral recommendation on the project next Monday at 11 a.m.

A battle over the air we breathe and the future cost of electricity begins today in a hotel conference room in Saint John.

The Public Utilities Board of New Brunswick (PUB) is holding two weeks of hearings on an application by NB Power to convert its Coleson Cove generating station from crude oil to Orimulsion.

Natural gas, the cleanest burning fossil fuel, was not included in NB Power's plans, but several interveners at the hearings are expected to raise questions about it.

SAINT JOHN, N.B. - An official with Energy Probe says N.B. Power has a serious problem with the nuclear reactor at Point Lepreau.

Tom Adams says the Power Commission's latest admission of more cracked pressure tubes indicates the plant is probably not safe to operate.

The Power Commission shut the plant down two weeks ago after a heavy water leak. The leak turned out to be more serious than officials thought.

J.D. Irving Ltd. may place a $200-million Saint John construction project on hold because it looks like New Brunswick's new energy policy doesn't go far enough in deregulating electricity, says the company.

At first glance, the Irving company's plan to build a 250-megawatt generating station on Bayside Drive seemed to have been made possible by the energy strategy Natural Resources and Energy Minister Jeannot Volpé unveiled yesterday.

An expert on the Canadian electric power industry says New Brunswick's new energy policy is a hodgepodge of ideas without a common thread of logic to tie them together.

"This is not a plan, this is just a grouping of ideas," said Tom Adams, executive director of the Ontario-based electric industry watchdog group Energy Probe.

Adams spent much of yesterday reading the 100-page energy policy, and told the Times & Transcript it is one of the most confusing documents on energy he's yet to come across.

Fredericton - Environmentalists are turning up the heat in New Brunswick to head off a possible multimillion-dollar overhaul of the aging Point Lepreau nuclear power plant, Atlantic Canada's only nuclear reactor.

"We're urging New Brunswickers to tell Premier Bernard Lord they want a 'do not resuscitate order' posted on the Lepreau plant," David Coon of the New Brunswick Conservation Council, an environmental watchdog, said Monday.

If you think the average annual earnings of $30,000 per year in New Brunswick are too low, you can't blame NB Power.

The average wage among the Crown corporation's staff in 1999-2000 was $61,500.

In fact, of those 2,600 employees, only 500 earned less than $40,000 that year and 43 per cent (about 1,060) earned $60,000 or more. Total wages for the year for NB Power came to about $155 million.

A New Brunswick energy ministry secretariat is finalizing a comprehensive energy policy that will guide the government's reaction to regional power market liberalization and the development of natural gas.

Led by the department of energy and mines' assistant deputy minister Don Barnett, the secretariat will submit its policy paper by the end of the month, with public release of some of the contents expected in mid-November.

After years of political avoidance, New Brunswick's fresh new provincial government, now less than three months old, has the best opportunity ever to fundamentally correct the problems that afflict its crown- owned utility, NB Power. The appointment of NB Power's leading critic, UNB professor of business Norman Betts, as Premier Bernard Lord's new Finance Minister signals that major new thinking will be brought to bear.

FREDERICTON (CP) -- Premier Camille Theriault says New Brunswick will hang on to its debt-ridden power utility despite the fact its future is still under study and a growing body of opinion that at least part should be sold.

Theriault said Thursday that NB Power, Atlantic Canada's largest utility, will remain a public utility and will not be chopped up and sold to private bidders to satisfy the demands of deregulation and an increasingly competitive marketplace.

FREDERICTON - Jobs losses are imminent whether New Brunswick overhauls NB Power or not - it is just a question of who will be left unemployed.

That was the sobering message the Select Committee on Energy received yesterday during the first day of public hearings into the fate of the province's electricity sector.

On the one side stand the 2,500 employees of NB Power and the uncertain future that awaits them if the government elects to follow the lead of some border states and sell all or some of NB Power's generators to private interests.

Fred McMahon's overwhelming economic and environmental arguments (Time to pay off the miners in Cape Breton, Nov. 10) to eliminate subsidies sustaining the coal industry in Cape Breton apply with equal force to the coal industry in New Brunswick.

NB Coal, New Brunswick's provincially-owned coal industry, produces even dirtier, higher sulphur coal than its Cape Breton counterpart, Devco. NB Coal is devastating the ecosystems where it strip mines. Like Devco, NB Coal can't compete against imported coal and relies on a hidden subsidy paid by overcharged electricity consumers.

FREDERICTON - NB Power can't move further into the North American energy market until the provincial government sets the rules for deregulating the industry in New Brunswick, say executives at the provincially owned utility.

"We've tried to be prepared," says Stewart MacPherson, NB Power's vice-president of corporate planning. "We don't have a sense of fear associated with [de-regulation] because we do believe we can adapt to it."

But the question remains: adapt to what?

New Brunswick's big decision on the best methods to bring natural gas to energy users in the province provides an historic opportunity to benefit consumers and the environment. Natural gas distribution systems should be expanded in the province as rapidly as possible, consistent with maintaining the profitability of all investments.

Despite criticism, plant remains fundamentally sound with low exposure risk

Although no nuclear power station in Canada suffered any serious breach of safety last year, Point Lepreau was singled out for greater criticism.

At a meeting of the Atomic Energy Control Board here yesterday, officials said their annual report on New Brunswick Power was more critical than its reports on all the other nuclear power stations in the country.

FREDERICTON -- Safety practices at Atlantic Canada's only nuclear power plant have received yet another poor report card.

The latest assessment by the Atomic Energy Control Board of New Brunswick's Point Lepreau nuclear power station reports a continuing decline in operational safety at the 15-year-old plant on the Bay of Fundy.

The AECB, the regulatory agency for Canada's nuclear power industry, states in its annual review of Lepreau for 1997 that there was a troubling deterioration in performance.

'You'd have better luck selling a 1983 K-Car,' analyst says of Point Lepreau

FREDERICTON - A nuclear energy expert says that privatizing NB Power will not allow the province to recoup the huge losses it has incurred because of the utility.

But Tom Adams of Energy Probe believes there are still substantial advantages to selling NB Power, which is currently in debt to the tune of about $3.4-billion.

FREDERICTON - Continuing with a Crown-owed electric utility that holds a monopoly on power generation and distribution in the province isn't in the province's best long-term interests, concludes a two-member task force that looked into options for the future for NB Power.

Report released on future of NB electricity industry by the NB government.

FREDERICTON (CNB) - A task force dealing with options surrounding the future of the electricity industry in New Brunswick released its report today. This completes the second of a three-stage process to provide formal recommendations to the provincial government.

Dear Mr. Hankinson:

For the second time in less than three weeks, NB Power has refused to publicly debate Energy Probe on the future of nuclear power in New Brunswick, this time on the CBC news magazine show "Focal Point".

To anybody who admires cool technology, the allure of renewable energy is nearly irresistible: it's much cleaner than burning coal or oil, and once you get the engineering right, power from the sun, the wind or agricultural waste should theoretically be very cheap.

Nevertheless, the renewable-energy business still remains tiny in Canada two decades after the oil embargoes of the 1970s sparked a wave of enthusiasm for new energy technologies.

Consultant's report says shutting down nuclear power plant next year would cost $3.13-billion

FREDERICTON - New Brunswick's nuclear power plant has another 10 years of life and with an overhaul, could operate until 2032, reports a consultant hired by NB Power to assess its options for the aging facility.

The Point Lepreau generating station went online in 1983 with an expected decommissioning date of 2014, but the U.S. consulting firm Hagler Bailly concludes it will need refurbishment before then.

New Brunswick has a brief but unprecedented opportunity to redirect its energy industry on a path away from monopolies and damaging megaprojects toward competition and environmental responsibility.

Developments on the business and political fronts make change in a previously frozen energy policy status quo possible. Two hungry, competing gas pipeline consortia-one featuring Westcoast allied with the Irving group and the other led by IPL through Consumers Gas allied with the McCains and other local investors-are vying for franchises.

In a report submitted last week to the NB Electricity Taskforce, enquiring into the province's energy future, Energy Probe outlined a path toward customer choice of electricity supplier, environmental and economic reregulation of the sector, break-up and privatization of NB Power, and a non-nuclear future for the province.

The report noted, "No other industrial sector is likely to exert as profound an influence on the economic prospects and environment integrity of the province as its electricity sector."

Table of Contents

Recommendations

Introduction

Chapter 1 Competition: The Customer's Best Protection

Chapter 2 Coping with NB Power's Nuclear Problems

Chapter 3 Public Process

NB Power's Threatened Defamation Suit
Unfettered Operation of the Press

Response to the Discussion Paper's Questions

1) Obligation to Serve
2) Cross Subsidies
3) Stranded Costs
4) Forms of Competition
5) Reliability of the Electricity System

SAINT JOHN - The company building the Sable Island pipeline says a lateral line to Northern New Brunswick will likely happen if NB Power can hammer out an agreement with a Belgium-based power company that wants to build a power generation plant in Belledune.

Although a complete economic analysis of the proposed Tractebel natural gas generating facility still needs to be completed, Mike Whalen of Maritime and Northeast Pipeline says initial estimates of consumption rates are encouraging.

Point Lepreau is going to be a huge drain on the finances of NB Power into the next century, warns a provincial report.

The plant will not last as long as expected and must either undergo a costly refurbishing or be shut down before the debt is paid off, says Electricity in New Brunswick Beyond 2000, prepared by the Department of Natural Resources and Energy to assess the Crown corporation's ability to meet deregulation.

WATCHFUL EYE: Incidents at the Lepreau are becoming all too common for the Atomic Energy Control Board, which warns that the quality of work must improve.

SAINT JOHN - A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Control Board says a Dec. 9 accident at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station is yet another example of a poor safety attitude at the plant.

NB Power refused today to provide a company representative to appear on the CBC television program "Focal Point" to debate the future of the province's nuclear program with Thomas Adams, Executive Director of the national environmental and consumer watchdog Energy Probe.

A representative of NB Power's confirmed to "Focal Point" producers that the utility's president James Hankinson would not debate Mr.Adams and that no one else in the corporation would be available.

Can NB Power count on its aging nuclear plant for power well into the future? The utility thinks so, but a spokesman for a watchdog agency has doubts:

Plagued by operational glitches and costly shutdowns, the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station has suffered through its worst year since it was commissioned 13 years ago, but NB Power is confident it can turn around the fortunes of the plant the flagship of its electrical power generating fleet.

In a letter dated May 23 and received today, counsel for NB Power, Marc Bosse, announced it was discontinuing its liable action against Energy Probe and Tom Adams.

NB Power had filed a Statement of Claim alleging that some of our published statements about the utility's management of financial, operational, and nuclear safety issue were defamatory. Energy Probe responded to the utility's claims by thoroughly documenting the truth of all of the impugned statements.

FREDERICTON - A vocal critic of NB Power says he isn't going to be bullied into silence by a lawsuit brought against him by the publicly owned utility.

Institute says it's sorry for critical report; utility to drop suit against it, directors today

FREDERICTON - INCENSED BY WHAT it saw as a threat to its own reputation and that of its president, NB Power filed a lawsuit late last month against a slate of high-powered Atlantic Canadians and one of its most vocal critics.

In documents filed in the Court of Queen's Bench, NB Power and president James Hankinson alleged they were defamed by a critical report published earlier this year by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax.

It was the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies that got SLAPP-ed, but every New Brunswicker should feel the sting of that assault.

NB Power's use of its considerable corporate weight in an attempt to silence one of its most vocal critics was more than inappropriate; it was downright frightening. The chill that NB Power directed at AIMS should run down the back of every New Brunswicker, including Premier Frank McKenna.

Projected profit turns into $70-million loss thanks to Point Lepreau shutdowns
FREDERICTON - Facing Canada's nuclear watchdog, NB Power admitted it did not see warning signs of trouble at Point Lepreau.

It told the Atomic Energy Control Board it did not keep itself up on advancements in the nuclear industry and its staff may not have kept up to standards. Saying it may be blinded to its own performance problems, it pledged to hire a consultant to turn Point Lepreau around.

HE NEW BRUNSWICK Power Corp. (NB Power) is in a state of operational and financial crisis, the dimensions of which can only be understood by looking at the utility's rates, costs, and accounts together. The utility is bearing excess debt, excess generating capacity, and unduly high operating costs. The utility's accounts do not accurately reflect its actual financial condition. Major risks to the utility include a shortfall in future sales and a shortfall in nuclear production.