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Which cognitive biases were evident in SCANA Corporation (with Santee Cooper)'s collapse?

5 bias patterns are documented in this case, led by Planning Fallacy. The full set: Planning Fallacy, Sunk Cost Fallacy, Overconfidence Bias, Confirmation Bias, Authority Bias. Each is mapped to Decision Intel's 22-bias R²F taxonomy with stable IDs and academic citations.

Did these cognitive biases cause SCANA Corporation (with Santee Cooper)'s collapse?

Decision Intel identifies reasoning-risk indicators correlated with poor outcomes — it does not claim to establish causation. That honesty is the procurement weapon: a CSO can defend a score that names the risk indicators a committee should pressure-test, not one that pretends to prove the cause. Planning Fallacy and the other documented patterns were detectable in the reasoning before the outcome was known; whether they caused it is a question no audit can settle — too many other factors (market, timing, execution) are in play. A reasoning audit names the risk indicators a committee should pressure-test, not a verdict it should accept.

What is Decision Intel's reasoning audit?

Decision Intel runs a 12-node Recognition-Rigor Framework (R²F) pipeline on strategic memos, detecting cognitive biases from a 22-bias canonical taxonomy and producing a Decision Quality Index (DQI) score. The audit produces a hashed, tamper-evident Decision Provenance Record (DPR) suitable for audit-committee review.

All case studies

Catastrophic failureEnergy2008

SCANA Corporation (with Santee Cooper)

V.C. Summer Nuclear Expansion Abandonment

Estimated impact: ~$9B spent with zero completed reactors; SCANA sold under distress; CEO criminal fraud conviction; ratepayers charged for a plant that never ran

F14

Decision Quality Index (simulated)

Critical · 5 biases detected, 2 toxic combinations

SCANA and state-owned Santee Cooper committed to building two AP1000 reactors at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina under a fixed schedule that assumed a first-of-a-kind reactor design could be built like a routine project. Schedule failures accumulated from the start; an independent Bechtel assessment documenting that the project could not meet its milestones was withheld from regulators while executives continued public assurances. When contractor Westinghouse went bankrupt in March 2017, the owners abandoned the project that July with roughly $9 billion spent and zero megawatts delivered. Ratepayers had been charged in advance under the state Base Load Review Act; SCANA’s CEO later pled guilty to federal fraud charges for concealing the schedule failures, and SCANA was absorbed by Dominion Energy.

Decision context

Whether to commit two regulated utilities to a multi-billion-dollar, first-of-a-kind nuclear construction program on a fixed schedule and budget, with cost recovery charged to ratepayers in advance, before the reactor design was construction-complete and before the contractor’s ability to deliver had been independently validated.

Decision anatomy

Monetary stakes

Very high

Dissent suppressed

Yes

Time pressure

Present

Unanimous consensus

Yes

Decision participants

Dissent encouraged

External advisors

Yes

Iterative process

Red = risk factor present · Green = protective factor present

Deep hindsight-stripped analysis coming soon. This case is part of our ongoing backfill to reconstruct what the platform would have flagged at decision time. The summary and bias profile below are drawn from primary sources.

Biases present in the decision

★Planning Fallacy

critical

Sunk Cost Fallacy

high

Overconfidence Bias

high

Confirmation Bias

high

Authority Bias

high

★ Primary driver · Severity estimated from bias type and decision outcome

3D Decision Knowledge Graph

SCANA Corporation (with Santee Cooper) · 5 biases, 2 toxic combinations

Drag to rotate · Scroll to zoom · Click to explore

Decision

Critical

High

Medium

Toxic

Bias Intensity Profile

Severity × confidence across 5 detected biases

Toxic combinations

!Sunk Ship

Commitment to a failing course escalates to justify sunk costs, even as evidence mounts.

!Reference-Class Blindness

Compound cognitive failure pattern identified in this decision.

Reference class base rates

Across all 146 curated case studies in our library:

89%

base failure rate

partial / mixed

11%

base success rate

■ Failure■ Partial■ Success

Lessons learned

A first-of-a-kind nuclear build scheduled against the base rate of ROUTINE construction is the planning fallacy at its most expensive — every comparable AP1000 project was already running years late when the schedule was reaffirmed.
Advance cost recovery (ratepayers billed before delivery) removed the natural financial circuit-breaker: the project could absorb overruns without triggering a stop decision, so sunk cost compounded for nine years.
The Bechtel assessment was the disconfirming evidence the structure had no channel for — an independent report documenting unreachable milestones was buried rather than escalated, converting a recoverable schedule problem into securities fraud.

Source: U.S. v. Kevin Marsh, D.S.C. plea agreement (2020); SEC v. SCANA Corp. complaint (2020); Bechtel Corporation project assessment (2016, released 2017); South Carolina Public Service Commission dockets on the Base Load Review Act surcharges (SEC Filing)

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The same Recognition-Rigor Framework that documents this case audits memos in the same shape — before the outcome forces the lesson.

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Decision context

Lessons learned

A first-of-a-kind nuclear build scheduled against the base rate of ROUTINE construction is the planning fallacy at its most expensive — every comparable AP1000 project was already running years late when the schedule was reaffirmed.

Advance cost recovery (ratepayers billed before delivery) removed the natural financial circuit-breaker: the project could absorb overruns without triggering a stop decision, so sunk cost compounded for nine years.

The Bechtel assessment was the disconfirming evidence the structure had no channel for — an independent report documenting unreachable milestones was buried rather than escalated, converting a recoverable schedule problem into securities fraud.