Seanna Adcox

Associated Press

In this Sept. 21, 2016 file photo, Unit one of the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville, S.C., is shown during a media tour of the facility. South Carolina’s utilities are abandoning two partly-built nuclear reactors. And they want permission to charge customers another $5 billion to cover their costs. An environmentalist says that money could have gone to renewable energy. Others say nuclear is key to cooling the planet and won’t exist if the federal government doesn’t finance it.

Outlook for U.S. Nuclear Projects 'Bleak'

Most of the 18 nuclear projects pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a decade ago have been aborted or suspended indefinitely.

This April 9, 2012 file photo shows construction well underway for two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, S.C. South Carolina's state-owned public utility has voted to stop construction on two billion-dollar nuclear reactors. The reactors were set to be among the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades, but the vote by Santee Cooper’s board on Monday, July 31, 2017 likely ends their future.

Nuclear Reactors Scrapped

While the decision will save customers billions in additional costs, customers of the two utilities may get little to nothing refunded of the billions they've already paid for the now-abandoned project.