Audit Casts Cloud on Idaho Nuke Plant Developer’s Finances
Snake River Alliance News Release
Aug. 8, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrea Shipley, Executive Director
(208) 344-9161 (office)
Email: [email protected]
A new audited financial statement for the company hoping to build a nuclear reactor south of Mountain Home in Idaho portrays a company in deep financial trouble, running up debt while failing to attract the huge cash infusions required to build an energy project that has states like Florida reeling from costs as high as $14 billion.
According to the “Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm” by New York-based Rotenberg & Corp. dated July 22 but posted on the “Pink Sheets” trading website on Tuesday, Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. was in dire shape as of the end of 2007 – the year for which the audit was performed.
“The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern,” the auditor wrote in the letter to AEHI’s Board of Directors and stockholders. “As discussed in Note 5 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company’s significant operating losses raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
“Pink Sheets” is an exchange designed to market stocks that don’t meet requirements demanded by conventional securities exchanges. In recent months, AEHI’s stock price has vacillated between 8 cents and 40 cents per share.
Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. claims it plans to build a 1,600MW nuclear plant near the Snake River in Elmore County, just downstream from Hammett. It has yet to submit any required permit applications with Elmore County, nor with federal regulatory officials. It also has not purchased the land on which it proposes to build the power plant, nor has it applied for permits to construct the required meteorological towers that will be needed to collect a year’s worth of weather and other data required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. AEHI has announced partnerships with three different possible financial supporters, but so far has yet to announce a deal to secure financing. AEHI CEO Don Gillispie has claimed his nuclear reactor will cost about $4.5 billion, yet plants of similar designs are now seeing costs soaring to more than double that.
“And now this audit,” said Snake River Alliance Executive Director Andrea Shipley. “It should be enough to give any would-be investor serious reservations. This is a company that has played loose with the facts since it arrived in Idaho a year and a half ago. It has moved its proposed reactor site from Owyhee County to Elmore County. Only after repeated demands from Owyhee County did AEHI pay the $50,000 permit processing costs it promised. It said the old site was perfect for its reactor, then pulled up roots and moved upstream on the Snake River. Mr. Gillispie said the new site in Elmore County is preferable because ‘The Elmore site is level.’ Well, he’s either not telling the truth or he hasn’t seen the property. We have. It’s some of the most rolling terrain in the area and we have the pictures to prove it.
“AEHI has said repeatedly it has lined up the tens of millions of dollars to submit required federal paperwork and buy the property, but so far has nothing to show for it. Idahoans were skeptical when AEHI and Mr. Gillispie moved here from Virginia, and they’re growing more so by the day.”
Among other things, the audited financial report shows AEHI racked up $3,394,200 in losses in 2007 alone for a total of $4,889,603 in losses. Despite more than 42 million shares of outstanding stock, AEHI ended 2007 with just $269,431 in cash on hand. It leases its Idaho headquarters offices on a month-to-month basis on a verbal agreement and last year spent $1,800 in rent.
“This is the company that claims it’s the solution to Idaho’s energy challenges? Mr. Gillispie likes to claim Warren Buffett withdrew his proposed nuclear reactor in Payette County last year because Warren Buffett lacked the business experience to build a power plant,” Shipley said. “In fact, the Mr. Buffett’s company, MidAmerican Energy said to the press that a commercial reactor in Idaho didn’t make economic sense. Mr. Gillispie simply hasn’t yet grasped that a commercial nuclear plant in Idaho is an economic, environmental, and energy loser.”
To view the AEHI audit, visit the Pink Sheets website at http://www.pinksheets.com/pink/quote/quote.jsp?symbol=AEHI#getQuote
and click the “Filings” button.
The Snake River Alliance has a long history of advocating for the cleanup of the radioactive legacy from the Cold War at the Idaho National Laboratory and protecting the Snake River Aquifer that lies underneath the contamination. It also advocates clean energy alternatives to nuclear and fossil fuel power generation.