A Georgia utility will pay $8 million for failed nuclear reactor parts.
The sale could help pay off part of Santee Cooper’s $4 billion nuclear debt. 
Electric cooperative members such as those at Mid-Carolina in Lexington County may have to pay off some of that debt in up to 13% higher electric rates.
If that happens it could cost members anywhere from $4,200 to $6,240 each over 40 years. 
The offer from Georgia’s Southern Co., which is building identical reactors, is due to expire within days.
There’s just one catch.
Taxpayer-owned Santee Cooper executives have already paid millions of dollars to mothball the reactor parts in warehouses and at the construction site. 
According to a Westinghouse lawsuit aimed at forcing a sale, Santee Cooper brass balked at a deal worth $8 million because it doesn’t want to share any of the money, the Charleston Post and Courier reported.
Critics are calling for Gov. Henry McMaster and state lawmakers to tell Santee Cooper to take the offer. 
Westinghouse has suggested putting the money in a restricted bank account until the dispute is settled. 
The Westinghouse reactors being built in Georgia are the only 2 under construction in the US. 
The next likely places to sell them are India or China, the only country to have successfully completed similar nuclear operations.
Critics say that with $4 billion in nuclear debt, Santee Cooper needs the money and such an offer may not come again. 
Unless major reactor parts such as steam generators, turbines and pumps are properly maintained, they could become worthless.
Santee Cooper accused Westinghouse of trying to rob its customers and “instead profit itself.”
To that, Westinghouse says it wasn’t fully paid. 
SCE&G, the majority partner in the project, has given up its ownership of parts.