Forty-four heads to Arcadia, Florida and the DeSoto solar power installation to celebrate the $3.4 billion funding of smart energy grid projects. But no one will be talking about the thirty percent rate increase being shoved down rate payers throats by Florida Power & Light in the midst of the worst depression since the Great one. The utility is asking for the rate increase to pay for two new nuclear power plants on the edge of Biscayne Bay National Park. The new reactors are expected to cost a total of $12.1 to $17.8 billion. Florida's Public Service Commission approved the project in March 2008. In 2006 the Florida legislature passed a measure to permit some cost recovery of nuclear power plants ahead of construction. Utilities may keep the money collected from rate payers even if the plants are never built. FPL has two existing pressurized water reactors at Turkey Point built forty years ago [photo]. They were controversial when built, and the utility faced stiff public opposition and litigation to build miles of cooling canals for the hot water ejected by the facilities. Those canals are not working as planned according to south Florida resident Alan Farago writing at Counterpunch. Similar environmental and safety issues are being raised by residents concerning the proposed units 6 and 7 sited as they are near fragile and federally protected wetlands. The permitting process is a Catch-22 for Floridians. The more objections they raise, the more the permitting process will cost which the company will pass on to rate payers in a separate add-on charge approved by the state.[photo courtesy Florida Power & Light]