Bay City Tribune

San Antonio City Council put off a vote Thursday on financing the city's share in the STP's proposed units 3&4 until January.

The vote on a $400 million bond issue to pay for its part of the STP expansion was derailed when council learned the project's cost estimate was about $4 billion higher than an early estimate by CPS Energy - San Antonio's power utility.

Contractor Toshiba gave the estimate to CPS more than a week before San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro learned of it, the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday, Oct. 30.

That riled some on city council to question if the utility needed more oversight.

Toshiba's estimate and CPS' handling of it comes amid reluctance from some on council to participate in building the two new units at STP.

Delaying San Antonio's vote until January, however, could result in a clearer picture of the project's total cost.

That's because Toshiba's price estimate was received in July and was meant as a starting point in negotiations.

"If NRG felt that cost estimate was what the final estimate was going to be, we wouldn't be doing this project," NRG Energy spokesman Dave Knox.

"We're working to lower that cost," he said.

NRG owns 44 percent of STP units 1&2, while CPS owns 40 percent and Austin Energy, 16 percent.

For the proposed reactors 3&4, a partnership between NRG and Toshiba, called NINA, has a 50 percent share - the same as CPS.

NINA has announced other investors will be sought and those share percentages will change as the project progresses.

Toshiba is building the 1,350-megawatt Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) that will be in each new unit.

Once units 3&4 are online in 2016 and 2017 - that's the present projection - they'll double STP's output and make the nuclear plant the largest in the country.

The CPS board chose units 3&4 as the utility's "next baseload generation resources," the Express-News has reported.

By the time San Antonio City Council considers another vote on the project in January 2010, the project cost estimate should be significantly lower, Knox said.

By then, Knox said, there should be a "detailed estimate which will serve as a framework for the price of the units."

Knox declined to estimate price numbers at this point, adding the Toshiba estimate quoted by the Express-News Friday was "an early snapshot of a discussion in progress."

STP's expansion is expected to generate more than $9 billion in economic benefit.

The construction will require 4,000 to 6,000 construction workers, while the completed units will create 800 new operating staff positions at STP.

San Antonio's decision ultimately will affect Matagorda County.

All of us should be paying attention to San Antonio City Council in January.