I regret that Rep. Randy Nix, whom I did not choose to represent me in the Georgia Legislature, thinks I made a frontal assault on him because of his vote on SB31 authorizing the pickpocketing of my wallet to pay for a pair of nuclear plants I may never see come to fruition.

He says he and 106 colleagues voted on the facts as opposed to 66 legislators who apparently ignored the facts. Here are some facts Nix chose to nix:

FACT: Four nuclear reactors were first proposed at the Vogtle site to cost an estimated $800 million. The final cost for two reactors: $8 billion. No surprise since no U.S. nuclear plant has come in at or below the estimated cost.

FACT: The linchpin for finding a permanent burial site for high-level radioactive wastes was dealt a blow Friday, the day before Nix’s letter ran {in the LaGrange Daily News}, when Energy Secretary Stephen Chu scrapped proposals for a permanent repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain after an outlay of $13.5 billion over 27 years.

FACT: This means that nuclear waste could remain at the Savannah River Site much longer than anticipated.

FACT: Tom Clements, southeast campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth, noted that Yucca Mountain was being designed to hold 70,000 tons of waste of which only 10 percent was to be from the Department of Energy with the remainder originating at commercial nuclear reactors.

“So,” said Clements, “I’m not sure this development changes anything as far as (SRS) waste because it was always at the bottom of the pecking order.”

FACT: Way back in 1974 there had been more than 500 studies on finding a permanent burial site for high-level radioactive wastes with no solution found.

Dr. Chu’s declaration that Yucca Mountain was no longer an option was mirrored in President Obama’s proposed budget which eliminated funds for the project.

FACT: Nix and his fellow Rush Limbaugh dittoheads ignored the fact that the only builder in the world of steel reactor vessels is Japan and that many reactor parts, if new plants are to be built here, must come from foreign suppliers. Another outsourcing in a time of rising U.S. joblessness?

FACT: Nix made no mention of the state of the art reactor being built in Finland by the French builder Areva that’s running a year behind schedule and 50 percent above cost estimates.

FACT: Some 70 lobbyists for Southern Co. and Georgia Power jammed into the Legislature to go a’courting. Did one of them buy you a cup of coffee, Mr. Nix?

FACT: You blame those wicked environmentalists for making nuclear power so expensive. How about the soaring costs of uranium.

FACT: Why has Wall Street shied from such a risky endeavor? Not only has Obama abandoned Yucca Mountain, Congress scrapped a $50 billion nuclear subsidy savored by the industry. Without the Price Anderson Act, which covers the industry in case of a disastrous accident, nukes already would be kaput.

FACT: The same technology used to build an F22 Raptor fighter at $37 million a copy can build windmills and nanosolar sheets, the former generating electricity from the wind, the latter from the sun. Hello, Lockheed workers, goodbye coal.

{Honicker is a retired newspaperman and freelance writer}.