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California Joins Bid to Save Nuclear Power
- systemvoltage 4y agoI hope this goes well. I can't help but to think about what kind of society lead us here [1] and how can we avoid in the future. I'm looking at you, California, with a stern gaze. > Opposition to nuclear power increased when President Richard Nixon called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000. Gee...only if we did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Calif...
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoTo be fair, California is one of the worst places to put nuclear reactors given how earthquake prone it is.
- systemvoltage 4y agoThe movement in California is against nuclear power in general. It reverberates across the nation through its influence.
- ncmncm 4y agoWe can only hope so.
- melling 4y agoAt some point the anti-nuclear movement should have to admit they were completely wrong. 40 years of trying to avert climate change and we are still waiting for the windmills and solar, with no way to store enough electricity so we can stop using fossil fuels. 40% of global electricity is still from coal
- ncmncm 4y agoWhen we get all our power from renewables and storage at a tiny fraction of the cost of nukes, I will not wait for nuke boosters to admit they were wrong. I will blissfully ignore them.
- melling 4y agoI definitely wish every home in America, warehouse, etc had solar on the roof. For whatever reason, we haven’t gotten to that point. Still not cheap enough? I was hoping Musk’s solar roof would be the start of something big. At any rate, in 2060 maybe we’ll have incredible batteries, solar energy everywhere, but we’re already way behind schedule. All this waiting for renewables has cost us years. It’s unlikely that we are going to avert significant climate issues.
- anton96 4y agoI always read the price for solar has gone significantly down in the last ten years. But I guess that only applies to the US or the industry. Here in Europe for an average size roof, it’s 20k € like it’s been for the last ten years.
- dagw 4y agoThere are a couple of things at play here. First of all, and most importantly, the quality of the panels you are getting for your 20k€, and thus the total amount of power they'll produce over their lifetime has gone up dramatically. Secondly while the cost of the panels has come down slightly, the cost of getting people to install them hasn't, and that has on the whole increased. If you where to install the solar panels as part of of either building the house or replacing/repairing an old roof that needed fixing anyway then it will be significantly cheaper.
- ncmncm 4y agoSurely you can buy them from Tblisi like we do.
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- zardo 4y agoIt's really going to reverberate if a quake induced nuclear disaster occurs.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoIt's against nuclear everything. The dominant anti-Diablo Canyon group is called Mothers For Peace, which really tells you everything you need to know.
- masonic 4y agoOnly in proximity to fault zones, mostly near the coast.
- toast0 4y agoBuilding near the coast is pretty useful to get access to seawater for cooling. You could build near the coast and not near known faults, but that doesn't prevent faults from being discovered later as happened to Diablo Canyon.
- masonic 4y ago>useful to get access to seawater for cooling But discharging that heat directly into seawater adversely affects sea life. This is what causes bleaching death of corals in warmer waters.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoIt's likely that if DCPP was to be relicensed they'd have to build cooling towers. The environmental impact studies alone would likely take years, especially because Mothers For Peace, the Surfrider Foundation, the local Chumash band, and every other group under the sun would tarpit the project. They hate nuclear like Everytown hates guns, and no amount of logic will change their minds. FWIW, I think the damage is done and DCPP shouldn't need to put in cooling towers — the output cove has different sea life than the ocean just a bit beyond it and has for decades. However, I don't make the rules.
- TheDudeMan 4y agoMaybe Nixon meant safe reactors instead of meltdown-prone LWRs.
- vlovich123 4y agoWe should almost certainly phase out Diablo Canyon. However, only because we supplant it by bringing on more newer and safer plants in more seismically stable locations to replace it. Replacing it without a plan just increases fossil fuel usage or results in outages. In the interim there should be very good plans to shut off the plant in case of a natural disaster.
- ncmncm 4y agoWe should phaseout Diablo Canyon because propping up that ramshackle contraption would burn enough money to build out twice the PV capacity it would take to replace it.
- ncmncm 4y agoEach dollar diverted to nukes from renewables brings climate disaster nearer. The big booster of nukes today is Big Fossil, because each nuke project started represents at least ten years of solid sales of NG, or worse, while construction is delayed again and again. With any luck, it will be cancelled before completion, and none of those dollars will have gone to panels that would immediately displace their product. Certainly none will be refunded. No nuke has ever been built with money not coerced from somebody.
- Areading314 4y agoRenewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own. It is not possible to heat houses or power a grid during low-wind periods in winter or at northern latitudes for sustained periods (weeks to months) with wind and solar. Nuclear can act as a zero carbon base load power. And we need to be making those investments now, or we'll be stuck with fossil for a lot longer than 10 years. I'll also add that renewables were made possible by massive government subsidies while they developed enough economies of scale to compete with other power sources. High carbon tax with subsidies for ALL zero carbon energy, including nuclear, are the way forward.
- melling 4y ago“Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own” Why has this been explained repeatedly for decades, yet still not understood? We’ve basically squandered half a century trying to stop climate change because people don’t like nuclear power
- ncmncm 4y agoBecause it is wholly false.
- melling 4y agoIt’s 2022 and 40% of global electricity is from coal. We just hit 10% from solar and wind. Here’s Carl Sagan from 1985: https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI He said China would use all that coal and they did. We lost decades of time. Now we need a few additional miracles.
- bjourne 4y agoThe tone of the article is not very objective at all. Especially not in the way it characterizes the environmentalist movement. It appears that this nuclear plant in California will stay open because president Biden has signed a bill that will ensure that the plant will receive federal bailout money to keep operating. I.e Americans not living in California will subsidize California's nuclear plant. Hard to frame that as a massive win for nuclear.
- ncmncm 4y agoAs literally always, nukes supported with coerced money.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoDCPP is not going to stay open. That bridge was crossed long ago, and it's difficult to imagine a realistic scenario where the plant gets relicensed and power purchase agreements are guaranteed such that running DCPP remains profitable even with California's renewables mandates. Renewing a plant's license is like building a rate case (which takes years), but harder. It takes time and money and we don't have enough of either to succeed, no matter what Biden or Newsom claim. NRC could waive certain things to speed it up but they won't (nor should they). FWIW, I live just a few miles from DCPP, have been onsite there a number of times when I worked for PG&E, and I sleep very well at night. PG&E may have screwed up in a lot of ways over the years, but DCPP is a well-run facility and it's a shame it has to close prematurely (lots of life left in that plant).
- ncmncm 4y agoCoercing elevated rates to pay for keeping it open would be a deal as bad as paying federal taxes to help prop it up. DC cannot compete on price even already built, ignoring capex.