2021 was supposed to be the year of progress and a final close to the disasterous Plant Vogtle #3 and #4. But it was anything but with early 2022 looking like things have retrogressed.

Early in 2021, crews at Georgia Power’s nuclear expansion site at Plant Vogtle were struggling to find all the leaks in a pool built to hold spent, highly radioactive fuel. They added air pressure under the floor of the water-filled pool, hoping air bubbles would pinpoint flawed welds. It didn’t work. So an engineer doubled the air pressure.

The result: The pool’s steel floor plates were damaged, rendering them unusable. New ones had to be manufactured. The fixes and rechecks of the pool have taken nearly a year and cost millions of dollars. It’s been that kind of a year at Plant Vogtle.

Ed note: In a very unfair fight against Government, anti-industrial environmentalists, Left foundations, and woke corporations, CO2/climate optimists have individuals that punch above their weight. One is Steve Milloy, founder and proprietor of JunkScience. His recent year-end review is reprinted below.

The year 2021 may go down in history as the year that foretold the end of the climate idiocy movement — although the movement is unlikely to take the hint. This year witnessed the follies, failures and lies of climate idiocy laid bare for all to see — that is, if the media had actually reported them.

So here are the 10 biggest failures of the climate movement in 2021. The only reason the climate movement survives past these flops is because the mainstream media keeps it afloat by failing to honestly report the news.…

“We cannot allow oil executives to blackmail us,” concludes Houston Chronicle business editorialist Chris Tomlinson. “They are not prophets; they are business people looking for profits.” And you, sir, are an elitist telling motorists and travelers of all ages and income levels to go eat cake.

He just keep doubling down against consumers who naturally choose the best energies–the plentiful, cheaper, more dependable ones. And so Chris Tomlinson closes out his repugnance week at Houston’s World Petroleum Congress with a peculiar rant:

Yes, Big Oil’s leaders promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as long as they can make money. But failure to provide the industry with $11.8 trillion in capital between now and 2045 will trigger an energy crisis that they insist will make the public forget all about the climate crisis.

“As we’ve said from the beginning of this project, we are going to build these units the right way…. We have endured and overcome some extraordinary circumstances building the first new nuclear units in the U.S. in more than 30 years. Despite these challenges, progress at the site has been steady and evident.”

– Chris Womack, chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power, October 21, 2021

Forget the U.S. Synthetic Fuel Administration of the 1970s. Forget the Obama Administration’s Solyndra project. The biggest debacle in modern U.S. energy history appears to be in Georgia, and the saga continues.

And far from unique, the latest-and-greatest in nuclear (this was supposed to be the breakthrough) is a warning sign about nuclear power in general. It has always needed government subsidies and protection. And it was a setup train wreck under lenient public utility regulation that allowed the franchised monopoly utility to recover all costs and a “reasonable” rate of return on invested capital.…