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Business Briefs: Turbine table set for Vogtle reactor

FILE- In this June 13, 2014 file photo, construction continues on a new nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. The delays in the nuclear industry are adding up, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to already expensive projects. The latest announcement came from SCANA Corp., which expects a year-long delay in the completion of its two reactors under construction in South Carolina. That announcement raised questions about whether an identical plant under construction by the same builders in Georgia will also see expensive delays. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
FILE- In this June 13, 2014 file photo, construction continues on a new nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. The delays in the nuclear industry are adding up, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to already expensive projects. The latest announcement came from SCANA Corp., which expects a year-long delay in the completion of its two reactors under construction in South Carolina. That announcement raised questions about whether an identical plant under construction by the same builders in Georgia will also see expensive delays. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) FILE- In this June 13, 2014 file photo, construction continues on a new nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. The delays in the nuclear industry are adding up, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to already expensive projects. The latest announcement came from SCANA Corp., which expects a year-long delay in the completion of its two reactors under construction in South Carolina. That announcement raised questions about whether an identical plant under construction by the same builders in Georgia will also see expensive delays. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

By Staff and Wire Reports 4 min read

Turbine table set for Vogtle reactor

Georgia Power Co. said Wednesday it has completed a 13-plus hour continuous concrete placement to create a 10-foot thick, 2,400-cubic yard turbine table for the Unit 4 reactor at Plant Vogtle. With this milestone, more than 550,000 total cubic yards of concrete have been placed at the construction site for the two new reactors Georgia Power is adding at the plant near Waynesboro, Ga.

The new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors are the only new commercial nuclear plants being built in America.

In the utility’s latest construction monitoring report, Southern Nuclear, which is building the new reactors for Georgia Power, Dalton Utiltiies and Oglethorpe Power Corp., said the cost of completing the new units should have a projected rate impact for customers of 9.8 percent with more than half of this impact already in place on bills.

“This projected rate impact is still below original projections of approximately 12 percent thanks to new federal tax laws, anticipated customer benefits from federal production tax credits (PTCs), interest savings from loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the fuel savings of nuclear energy,” Georgia Power said in a statement Wednesday.

Amazon to add St. Louis warehouse

Amazon is planning open a large packing and shipping facility in suburban St. Louis that will employ more than 1,500 full-time workers.

The Seattle-based online retailer announced plans Wednesday for the 800,000 square-foot fulfillment center in St. Peters.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development said Amazon could receive more than $11 million in state incentives.

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens said in a video posted to Twitter that Amazon was investing $175 million in the facility.

Amazon has more than 75 fulfillment centers across the U.S. and Canada, including distribution centers in Chattanooga and Charleston, Tenn.

Icahn denies trading on tariff knowledge

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn denied having prior knowledge of President Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum before he sold about $31 million of stock in steel-dependent Manitowoc Co.

“Any suggestion that we had prior knowledge of the Trump administration’s announcement of new tariffs on steel imports is categorically untrue,” Icahn said in a posting on his website Wednesday. “We reduced our position in Manitowoc for legitimate investment reasons having nothing to do with that announcement.”

Icahn had served as an unofficial adviser to Trump, but stepped down in August because of criticism regarding the appearance of possible ethical conflicts.

A regulatory filing shows Icahn sold almost 1 million shares in The Manitowoc Co. from Feb. 12 through Feb. 22. for between $32.47 and $34.31 per share. Trump made his announcement about the tariffs – saying he would levy penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports – last Thursday, on March 1.

European clocks slowed by power grid woes

Millions of Europeans who arrived late to work or school Wednesday had a good excuse – an unprecedented lag in the continent’s electricity grid that’s slowing down some clocks.

The problem is caused by a political dispute between Serbia and Kosovo that’s sapping a small amount of energy from the local grid, causing a domino effect across the 25-nation network spanning the continent from Portugal to Poland and Greece to Germany.

“Since the European system is interconnected … when there is an imbalance somewhere the frequency slightly drops,” said Claire Camus, a spokeswoman for the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity.

The Brussels-based organization, known as ENTSO-E, said in a separate statement that “this average frequency deviation, that has never happened in any similar way in the Continental European power system, must cease.”

The deviation from Europe’s standard 50 Hz frequency has been enough to cause electric clocks that keep time by the power system’s frequency, rather than built-in quartz crystals, to fall behind by about six minutes since mid-January.