The Midland cogeneration venture

The Midland facility, crucified as a nuclear plant, then resurrected as a gas-fueled, combined-cycle cogeneration plant. It was started twenty years ago as a nuclear cogeneration plant. For a combination of reasons, the nuclear plant's cost then ballooned to over $4 billion and the construction schedule stretched across two decades. After about twenty year's effort, it had generated nothing but controversy. The engineering challenges were addressed in a comprehensive options study to identify how best to use Midland to stave off the Company's impending shortage of generating capacity - the whole reason Midland was built in the first place. The authors looked at either abandoning the facility altogether and purchasing needed electricity from other utilities (if available), or putting it to work by either completing it as a nuclear plant or converting it to either coal or gas