From Forbes:
Diablo Canyon Power Plant, 2009 photo from offshore. The light beige domes are the containment structures for Unit 1 and 2 reactors. The brown building is the turbine building where electricity is generated and sent to the grid. In the foreground is the Administration Building (black and white stripes). Picture: “Mike” Michael L. Baird via Wikimedia
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) issued a press release today stating that they have signed a deal with PG&E PCG +0.10%, IBEW local 1245, the Coalition of California Utility Employees, Friends of the Earth, Environment California, and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.
There is an implied quid pro quo. The groups will support PG&E’s request for an extension from the California Lands Commission of its land use permit that allows access to ocean cooling water at the Commission’s June 28 meeting. In return, PG&E will agree to withdraw its 20-year license extension application at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission . Instead, it will aim to retire the two-unit site when its current licenses expire in 2024 and 2025.
The press release claims that the electricity produced by the plant will be replaced with a combination of wind, solar, and “energy efficiency.”
“Energy efficiency and clean renewable energy from the wind and sun can replace aging nuclear plants — and this proves it. The key is taking the time to plan. Nuclear power versus fossil fuels is a false choice based on yesterday’s options,” said NRDC President Rhea Suh.
That’s a deceptive fig leaf; it is physically impossible for wind, solar and energy efficiency to replace the steady production of a nuclear power plant. Producing the same total number of kilowatt-hours each year is not the same as producing the same kilowatt-hours on a minute by minute, hour by hour or day by day basis.
Full story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/06/21/breaking-nrdc-announces-pge-has-agreed-to-kill-diablo-canyon/
Over at Friends of the Earth (FOE) they say:
Diablo Canyon is the nuclear plant that catalyzed the formation of Friends of the Earth in 1969. When David Brower founded Friends of the Earth the Diablo Canyon was the first issue on the organization’s agenda and Friends of the Earth has been fighting the plant ever since. This agreement is not only a milestone for renewable energy, but for Friends of the Earth as an organization.
Gosh, what will they do now? Get a new target I suppose. Maybe they’ll ask that California be the first “automobile free state” in the USA, after all, all the automotive manufacturing plants have already left California. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Bloomberg had the best headline: Losing a Nuclear Weapon Against Climate Change
Some environmentalists are thrilled at Tuesday’s announcement of the planned closing of California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. They might want to reconsider: Fighting climate change requires more nuclear power, not less.
The losers in this plan, which is pending regulatory approval, are all those who will suffer the consequences of climate change. That Diablo Canyon’s two reactors could be allowed to shut down is alarming evidence that too little effort is being made to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The climate-friendly electricity that the Diablo Canyon plant generates, which amounts to about 9 percent of California’s power, would be lost.
Welcome to the darkness. You thought the Enron trading scam induced blackouts in California around 2000 were bad? Wait til 2025. Let’s all sit in the dark and chant kumabahya while we wait for wind and solar to come online again.
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When we don’t have enough water and power to make enough food… this, also, will be “bad luck.”
Not only can people be this dumb, it is normal. And they will roundly denounce others as foolish, even as they rush over that cliff. Again.
Well, a new US reactor just switched on!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/17/the-u-s-is-powering-up-its-first-new-nuclear-reactor-in-decades/
but it isn’t going too well…
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2016/jun/21/watts-bar-nuclear-plant-shuts-down-second-time-three-weeks/372227/
I’m astonished the USA remembered how to make a nuclear plant. Where did they find the expertise? In a retirement home? Or from China / Russia / India / Pakistan / North Korea / Iran?
That’s pretty normal in the commissioning period of a power plant – there are a LOT of systems that need to be run up, checked, adjusted etc and sometimes you need to shutdown the plant to perform these operations.
http://www.babcock.com/library/Documents/e1013201.pdf
So why are people complaining about Ivanpah and other solar CSP plant then – its just normal during commissioning, right?
Commissioning does not normally take 2 years.
Griff obviously failed to read the first article to which he provided a link. The commissioning will take until ‘the end of the summer’.
Griff it is commissioning and was still outputting 390MW. Ivanpah is fully operational as of February 13, 2014 it’s all in the wikipedia entry and the tables at the bottom . Quote: “In its second year of operation, Ivanpah’s production of 652,375 MW·h was 69.4 percent of its 940,000 MW·h design”.
When the nuclear reactor is in it’s second year of OPERATION and is at 69.4% feel free to criticize it and we will all agree.
Reports outside the US suggest your new nuke may be in trouble – I would not be surprised if 2 years down the line it is still not up to speed.
You might ask yourselves about the information you are seeing in the US press on this…
Germans using it as example to justify their no nuke policy…
Source or it didn’t happen Griff … I don’t do rumour.
You may care to know Sweden has back out replacing there Nuclear power stations with Wind, last week in a deal between the Social Democrats and Greens. They didn’t like the idea of the country going back to the dark ages as the Nuclear power stations were about to start closing because of the “special tax” imposed on them.
Changing to wind just didn’t stack up or make any economic sense
http://phys.org/news/2016-06-nuclear-power-doesnt-sweden.html
The back story to re-investing in the nuclear reactor program
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/17/11950440/sweden-nuclear-power
Are you going to be okay Griff?
California’s greeanderthals are not fit for nuclear technology. The morons don’t deserve the benefits of the scientific enlightenment that they are so determined to crush. They want what their narcotic-addled brains can understand – the stone age – and that’s what they will get.
No one killed the power station. They have a life of about 60 years. PGE just conned the idiots to go away until it would normally be shut down, allows the idiots to save face, claim they did something when they did nothing at all.
PG&E agreed to not keep the plant open when it might have. That is not a con. It is a response to legal blackmail.
The “watermelons” own California. I feel sad for my friends that live there.
“Let’s all sit in the dark and chant kumabahya while we wait for wind and solar to come online again.” Californians will be paying a yuuuge premium for that privilege.
It’s clear the Greens’ plan for “fighting global warming” has only one, acceptable method: a return to 18th century technology and subsequent reduction of human population to well under a billion through famine and war.
Never forget: these are compassionate people.
And if you do forget, they will yell at you until you remember.
+1
Stop selling California any energy made elsewhere. Let them show us the way 100% on their own.
So sad.
“Energy efficiency and clean renewable energy from the wind and sun can replace aging nuclear plants”
Huh? This implies energy demand would decrease. The compelling issue facing the world is satisfying increasing energy demands not assuming a decrease in energy demands.
If they cut supply, people will use less. It’s called “efficiency.”
As a reminder to all Californians, Florida is full please go elsewhere.
The big energy efficiencies were squeezed out of the system decades ago.
The only way to reduce energy demand now days is to force citizens and businesses to leave the state.
California is now officially regressed to the early 20th century.
Instead of moving forward socially, educationally and technically into the 21st century, we are taking giant strides backwards.
This is a deep failure of our educational system and stems from the same ignorance that has led to the growing belief that the earth is flat; seriously, many well educated people (doctors, attornies, airline pilots!) believe that the earth is truly flat in the face of incontrovertible logic and evidence from many directions. In their minds (and in the mind of anyone who holds such aberrant beliefs), reality becomes what I believe it to be. The problem metastasizes into a full-blown cancer when those belief systems begin to affect legislation and dictate public policy, such as what has just happened with Diablo Canyon.
Green energy technology includes all non-carbon based sources, including nuclear. This reminds me of the 20 fiasco trying to open Long Island’s Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, something we’re still paying for (to the tune of $6 B – a 3 percent surcharge is attached to Long Island electric bills for 30 years to pay off the $6 billion) and something that never generated 1 watt of commercial power, thanks to New York’s current governor’s deceased father, the late Gov. Mario Cuomo (may he not rest in peace). The plant was approved in 1972 and construction began the following year and was completed in 1984. Although much of the hype was based on what happened at TMI and Chernobyl, there would never be the need for a full evacuation. Then Gov. Cuomo ordered state officials not to approve any utility-sponsored evacuation plan, effectively preventing the plant from operating at full capacity. This is what happens when science illiteracy becomes pandemic and impacts public policy – the mix can be disastrous! This situation hasn’t improved but, in point of fact, has gotten a lot worse.
Much can happen in the intervening 9 years; lets hope (and work towards) the day when cooler heads (and clear thinking) will prevail.
What do you expect when Middle Ages are being resurrected as New Age?
Obama and the leftist environmentalists support Nuclear Power in Iran, an oil exporter. Environmentalists are setting the stage for a nuclear WWIII. We will all pay a heavy price for their insanity.
The thing is, it doesn’t really matter what the power source is – eco-groups will block it. Even if it’s theoretically on their list of approved sources. Put up a windmill, they’ll block it. Take hydro – cleanest true renewable power source available – and they’ll tear out every dam they can.
That’s why there’s simply no gain in negotiating with them on any level.
I wonder why novelists often foresee the future better than “experts”. The novel “Overload” by Arthur Hailey, published 1979 pointed out all of the problems currently being experienced in electrical energy generation industry. The only thing not being experienced is the funding of terrorism/sabotage by the “environmentalists”.
Perhaps I should not have pointed this out as the Gaia worshipers may use the novel as an instruction manual.
There is an annual conference sponsored by the CIA that brings together novelists — often science fiction and military “thriller” writers — to come up with scenarios in which the United States can be attacked or weakened. It’s along the concept of, “if it can be imagined, it can happen.” Of course, the idea has been raised that popular novelists are actually *giving* ideas to potential terrorists/bad actors (not in the movie sense, like Brad Pitt). Personally, I believe that black hats have enough imagination to come up with all sorts of dangerous stuff on their own. The conference is meant to goad the security agencies to be on the look-out for the weird and wonderful. Defense is always more difficult that offense.
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Unfortunately, building new nuclear plants has been made quite expensive. Natural gas is far cheaper. Here’s the thing though, coal is also cheap, but the enviroloons and warmunists hate coal. So the sensible thing to do, once Trump is president, is to go back to coal, and let coal and gas fight it out. The consumer wins that battle. As for nuclear, well, perhaps it’s time has come and gone, at least until we get a cheaper, better version of it.
but in the US gas will always be cheaper… except that in some places and applications solar and wind are also cheaper than both.
What no peak gas … that isn’t like you Griff.
Solar power is the cheapest at night. Its $0.00 a kilowatt hour
Free cold in winter and free heat in summer. That solar stuff is great huh?
Doonman: Heh, heh, heh! One divided by zero. Love it.
Griff it’s got worse, I was reading up on all the changes to the Swedish decision to abandon wind and go back to nuclear. Finland is considering doing the same it already has Hanhikivi 1 under construction.
It was interesting what the Swedish electrical utilities did which was call the politicians bluff and refused to sign electricity supply contract extensions and stated they intended to close the reactors back in Oct 2015. There are lots of news articles about it and the greens very happy.
Quote: “Vattenfall, Sweden’s largest utility, threatened earlier this year to shut by the end of the decade the country’s six remaining reactors if the tax – which raised about $484m (€430m) last year – was not scrapped.”
The stark reality obviously sinks in when all the government experts tell them there country is about to go back to the dark ages. They drop the special tax imposed on nuclear power which was then used to subsidize renewable energy .. I can imagine the nuclear industry was a bit peeved with it.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Sweden-abolishes-nuclear-tax-1006169.html
Then they basically sign in to building up to 10 more nuclear power plants.
I think there is a lesson here for other countries to call the Bluff of the greens.
What a beautiful example of extortion by litigation.
Reblogged this on Astronomy Topic Of The Day and commented:
Instead of moving forward socially, educationally and technically into the 21st century, we are taking giant strides backwards.
This outcome is a failure of our educational system and a complete lack of any forward thinking and science literacy. Although much progress has been made in developing and deploying green energy technologies, there is a way to go before it can be considered a complete and viable substitute for nuclear power as is suggested by this agreement. With an ever-dwindling supply of carbon-based energy sources, the strain on the infrastructure and those resources will become increasingly acute, resulting in ever-higher prices coupled with increasingly more aggressive methods employed by powerful petroleum interests and governments to secure those resources. I can foresee the day, not too far off, when sanctioned military conflict will be waged to secure the ever-dwindling vestiges of a squandered resource. I have written a number of articles articulating the benefits of an expanded nuclear power baseline, highlighting how new and improved fast-breeder reactor technologies can address the growing energy demand while going a long way towards solving the nuclear waste disposal problem. As carbon-based energy generation becomes increasingly problematic, as energy demand approaches critical mass, the need for nuclear power to play an expanded role in the energy sector is obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Sadly, this reality is lost on NRDC, the operator of Diablo Canyon and the State of California.
This agreement stems from the same ignorance that has led to a growing belief that the earth is flat. Seriously, many well-educated people (doctors, attorneys, airline pilots!) truly believe that the earth is flat, this in the face of incontrovertible evidence from many directions that include six successful moon landings, rovers on Mars, orbiting telescopes and observatories, a science platform in orbit around Saturn, flybys of Pluto, GPS, communications satellites, Satellite TV, the list is long and growing of our scientific achievements as a race and a species, many with clearly demonstrable aspects of a spheroidal Earth. In their minds (and in the mind of anyone who holds such aberrant beliefs), reality becomes what I believe it to be. The problem metastasizes into a full-blown cancer when those belief systems begin to affect legislation and dictate public policy, such as what has just happened with Diablo Canyon.
Green energy technology includes all non-carbon based sources, including nuclear. This reminds me of the 20-year-long fiasco trying to open Long Island’s Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, something we just paid off (to the tune of $6 B – a 3 percent surcharge is attached to Long Island electric bills for 30 years to pay off the $6 billion) and something that never generated 1 watt of commercial power, thanks to New York’s current governor’s deceased father, the late Gov. Mario Cuomo. The plant was approved in 1972 and construction began the following year and was completed in 1984. Although much of the hype was based on what happened at TMI and Chernobyl, there would never be the need for a full evacuation. Then Gov. Cuomo ordered state officials not to approve any utility-sponsored evacuation plan, effectively preventing the plant from operating at full capacity. This is what happens when science illiteracy becomes pandemic and impacts public policy – the mix can be disastrous! This situation hasn’t improved but, in point of fact, has gotten a lot worse.
Much can happen in the intervening 9 years; lets hope for (and work towards) the day when cooler heads (and clear thinking) prevail.
Some of these same enviro advocacy groups successfully halted other nuclear plants with the courtroom argument that there would be a scarcity of fuel and higher fuel costs (San Diego case). Since this case was won with completely opposite arguments compared to reality, it demonstrates that whatever ploy works at the time wins the case. Nuclear may have been a financial disaster for ratepayers but fuel scarcity and associated cost was not even close to reality. Manipulating courts and the energy commission requires big bucks for that kind of special skill.