INSTITUTE INDEX: Nuclear rebirth dead in Florida?

Amount Progress Energy has spent so far on planning the construction of two nuclear reactors at an undeveloped site in Levy County, Fla.: $1.1 billion

Of that total, amount paid already by the company's Florida customers: $545 million

Amount that represents per customer: $340

Percent of the outstanding amount that the company's Florida customers will have to pay: 100

Date on which it was reported that Progress is canceling the main construction contract for the Levy reactors, raising questions about whether they will ever be built: 1/26/2012

Year in which the Florida legislature passed a law allowing investor-owned utilities to begin collecting money in advance to pay for future nuclear reactors, a financing scheme known as construction work in progress or CWIP: 2006

At that time, estimated cost of the Levy project: $6 billion

Estimated cost in 2007: $10 billion

Estimated cost in 2008, when the utility said it would build not one but two reactors in Levy County: $17 billion

Current cost estimate for the project: $22 billion

Year in which the project was originally set to be completed: 2016

Year that the state Office of Public Counsel, which represents consumers before the Public Service Commission, believes the Levy County reactors will be brought online at the earliest: 2027

Current estimated cost of two additional reactors that Florida Power & Light is planning to build at its Turkey Point plant near Miami: $20 billion

Under the state's pay-in-advance law, amount that would be refunded to utility customers if the planned reactors are never built: $0

Date on which the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy filed an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the state's nuclear pre-payment law, calling it a "scam": 12/21/2011

Number of bills introduced in the Florida legislature to overturn the nuclear cost recovery law: 2

(Click on figure to go to source. Map of Levy nuclear site from Progress Energy's website.)