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Crystal River nuclear plant tools and equipment go for 'pennies on the dollar' at auction

 
Andrew Yonke takes notes on the contents of some of the items that are up for auction as part of the Global Webcast Auction. Thousands of items from the Duke Energy Crystal River nuclear plant are being sold.
Andrew Yonke takes notes on the contents of some of the items that are up for auction as part of the Global Webcast Auction. Thousands of items from the Duke Energy Crystal River nuclear plant are being sold.
Published Sept. 25, 2014

CRYSTAL RIVER — Ross Dove begins the bidding just after 10 a.m.

"It is the appointed hour," Dove announces. "The assets are formally on the auction block."

One million items in more than 3,000 lots. Total value, according to Duke Energy Florida: $100 million.

The products — including a Micro Vu Optical Comparator and Digital Thermocouples — would be a mystery, and of no use, to most of the utility's 1.7 million customers. But they paid for them all and have a financial interest in the outcome.

Whatever Duke raises over the three-day auction that began Wednesday here and online will reduce the $1.7 billion that ratepayers have to pay for the shuttered Crystal River nuclear power plant. The utility broke the plant during a botched upgrade project and decided in February 2013 that repairing it would be too expensive.

Trying to make the best of a bad situation, Duke is selling off what it can from the plant, from wrenches and nuts and bolts to air conditioners and nuclear equipment.

Still, the auction represents a double loss for utility customers. The utility's incompetence cost them the inexpensive power the Crystal River plant might have provided for another generation.

And the equipment up for auction this week was selling at bargain-basement prices.

A Crane nuclear valve goes for $70.

"Awfully cheap," Dove tells the bidders.

A Westinghouse Motor/pump.

"Stolen for $1,000," Dove shouts. "Great buy."

A bidder in Tampa nabs a micrometer caliper for $200. Bidders in Pinellas Park and Brooksville grab precision calipers for a couple of hundred dollars.

"It looks like good deals," says Ron Curry of Inglis, at the auction looking for some tool cabinets. "They're all good deals."

Good deals, Curry says, because the products from the nuclear plant are top quality with paper trails on the parts to meet regulatory standards, down to the nuts and bolts.

"I think they're buying a lot of this stuff for pennies on the dollar," said Ken Duncan of Bayside Rigging and Machinery Movers, a contractor helping move products.

Motors sold for $500 or $600 that some bidders said would cost $10,000 new. Circuit breakers that by some estimates would cost thousands of dollars sold for $350.

Jeff LaPratt, Duke's project manager for investment recovery, promises nothing will be left.

"It will all get sold," LaPratt said. Whatever doesn't go at the auction "will sell as scrap."

Contact Ivan Penn at ipenn@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2332. Follow @Consumers_Edge.