Two Centuries of Power and a Billion-Dollar Bet Gone Wrong

The story of SCANA Corporation reads like a Greek tragedy written in kilowatts and balance sheets. A company that lit Charleston's streets in 1846 and helped electrify the Carolinas ultimately staked its existence on a nuclear expansion that never produced a single watt. Janice Simmons's SCANA Corp: The Story of An American Company follows that arc with the patience of a historian and the precision of a forensic accountant.

What the book is about

The book spans 25 chapters and nearly two centuries, organized chronologically from the Charleston Gas Light Company's 1846 charter through SCANA's 2019 acquisition by Dominion Energy. Simmons structures the narrative in three broad movements: the long consolidation of gas and electric utilities across the Southeast (Chapters 1–12), the fateful decision to build two AP1000 reactors at V.C. Summer and the ensuing disaster (Chapters 13–22), and the legal, regulatory, and governance aftermath (Chapters 23–25). The work draws on regulatory filings, the Bechtel Report, SEC complaints, court transcripts, and public testimony. It is written for readers who want a complete institutional history — utility professionals, policy makers, business historians, and anyone tracking the intersection of infrastructure, regulation, and corporate accountability.

The utility as a mirror of American energy

Simmons uses SCANA's corporate genealogy to show how the industry's technology shifts — manufactured gas, hydroelectricity, coal, nuclear, natural gas — played out in one service territory. Chapter 1 details the Charleston Gas Light Company's 1846 charter and its Palladian Meeting Street headquarters, while Chapter 5 devotes thirty pages to the Saluda Dam and Lake Murray, "the world's largest earthen dam" when completed in 1930. The narrative traces how each generation of leadership bet the company on the era's dominant fuel: hydro in the 1920s, coal in the 1950s, nuclear in the 1970s and again in the 2000s. The result is a case study in path dependence — infrastructure decisions made decades ago still shape rate structures and risk profiles today.

The holding company pivot and the deregulation gamble

Chapter 6 marks a structural turning point: the 1984 merger of SCE&G and Carolina Energies, Inc. into SCANA Corporation. Simmons explains the holding company logic — "risk mitigation" through subsidiary silos, "streamlined control," and access to capital for unregulated ventures. Chapters 8 through 10 document the resulting diversification: the $673 million purchase of PSNC Energy (Chapter 9), the Georgia retail gas push via SCANA Energy (Chapter 9), and the fiber-optic build-out of SCANA Communications (Chapter 10). Yet the same structure that enabled expansion also concentrated risk. When the V.C. Summer project collapsed, the holding company's debt and regulatory exposure cascaded across every subsidiary, forcing the 2015 fire sales of Carolina Gas Transmission and SCANA Communications (Chapter 9) to preserve the core utility.

The V.C. Summer collapse: ambition, opacity, and the Base Load Review Act

Chapters 13 through 16 form the book's dramatic core. Simmons reconstructs the project from the 2007 Base Load Review Act — which allowed SCE&G to "raise rates on customers to pay for nuclear plant construction while the plants were still being built" — through the 2008 COL application, the 2013 first concrete pour, and the 2017 abandonment. She highlights the dissonance between public assurances and internal knowledge. The March 2016 Bechtel Report, commissioned by SCANA and Santee Cooper, "outlined Westinghouse's failures as the main contractor and, crucially, accused the utilities of insufficient oversight," yet SCE&G sought and received another rate increase three months later. By July 2017, customers had paid "$2 billion towards the reactors that would ultimately never be completed." The term "Nukegate" enters the lexicon in Chapter 16, capturing the convergence of financial ruin, political fallout, and betrayed public trust.

Criminal accountability and the limits of regulatory capture

Chapters 17 and 18 detail a rare outcome: criminal convictions of top executives. The SEC's 2020 complaint alleged that former CEO Kevin Marsh and Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne made "false and misleading statements" about the project's eligibility for over $1 billion in federal production tax credits. Marsh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, received a two-year sentence, and forfeited $5 million. Byrne pleaded guilty to the same charge, was sentenced to 15 months (later converted to home confinement), and paid $1 million in restitution. Simmons notes the role of Byrne's "careful notes" in securing convictions — a reminder that documentation intended to protect executives can become evidence against them. The chapter also covers the $192 million shareholder settlement ("the largest securities class action recovery ever obtained in the District of South Carolina") and the pending Deloitte auditor settlement.

Enduring lessons for a decarbonizing grid

The final chapters widen the lens. Chapter 24 distills governance failures: boards that accepted management assurances without independent verification, a regulatory framework (the Base Load Review Act) that shifted construction risk entirely to ratepayers, and a consumer advocacy structure (the Office of Regulatory Staff) that lacked statutory power to halt the project. Chapter 25 connects these lessons to the present — surging demand from data centers and electrification, the intermittency challenge of renewables, and the renewed legislative push for small modular reactors in South Carolina with cost-recovery provisions eerily similar to the BLRA. Simmons writes that "the V.C. Summer failure stands as a stark reminder of the perils of mismanaged ambition and the consequences of eroding public trust," while acknowledging that nuclear power remains "a vital component of a low-carbon future" for many planners.

Who should read this

Readers seeking a definitive, document-heavy account of one of the largest infrastructure failures in U.S. utility history will find it indispensable. The book rewards familiarity with regulated utility economics but defines terms like "rate base," "construction work in progress," and "combined construction and operating license" when they first appear. Investors, regulators, and engineers will appreciate the granular timeline and the inclusion of primary-source excerpts. Casual readers looking for a character-driven narrative may find the middle chapters dense with procedural detail. For anyone involved in energy policy, corporate governance, or large-project risk management, this is a reference work that will stay on the shelf long after the first read.

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