Mitsubishi Heavy to fight nuclear plant negligence claim in California

The last paragraph is interesting, "who should pay for Mitsubishi’s replacement generators, ratepayers or shareholders." now here they quote a choice, but then "A decision could be months, or years, away. Any money Edison recovers from Mitsubishi could reduce the exposure of ratepayers. Now that seems the decision has already been made , the ratepayers. So why quote months or years, when everyone knows the obvious if there is a choice between shareholders and ratepayers who pays.

Quick review:

Edison is now suing MHI for building the replacement steam generators to their specifications!

MHI is saying that it is not their fault since SCE in-house CA licensed engineers signed off on their design as meeting their requirements.

If SCE and MHI cannot agree upon a settlement, it will go to arbitration by a third party all done behind closed doors!

Left unsaid in the above article is the fact that the US NRC can exert enormous pressure on either or both parties since both want to continue to do business in the USA and therefore cannot ignore direction from the NRC, who wants to get this nuclear engineering debacle behind them ASAP, because the NRC also got much egg on its face because of this debacle because of their regulatory oversight failure!

I look for a settlement of about $200 Million between SCE and MHI. Then SCE will ask the CPUC to accept that amount as full payment in order to settle their ongoing San Onofre Investigation. This will be their first low-ball offer to the CPUC, since SCE (and its partners SDG&E who owns 20% and Riverside County who owns 2%) may be on the hook for well over $3+ Billion.

===> A suggestion for a future article is a listing of just what SCE/MHI may be asked to repay ratepayers should the CPUC actually agree with all the public advocates and find SCE at fault; I know that sounds unlikely but remember the CPUC itself is now being investigated by the Feds for their own San Bruno Debacle* so anything is possible!

In that case, perhaps Tepco should be suing GE. http://nuclear-news.net/2013/07/18/ex-ge-engineer-highlights-critical-fukushima-reactor-design-flaw/