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California Will Close Its Last Nuclear Power Plant (sfchronicle.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the San Francisco Chronicle:
California's last nuclear power plant -- Diablo Canyon, whose contentious birth helped shape the modern environmental movement -- will close in 2025, state utility regulators decided Thursday. The unanimous vote by the California Public Utilities Commission will likely bring an end to nuclear energy's long history in the state. State law forbids building more nuclear plants in California until the federal government creates a long-term solution for dealing with their waste, a goal that remains elusive despite decades of effort.
The decision comes even as California expands its fight against global warming. Owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Diablo Canyon is the state's largest power plant, supplying 9 percent of California's electricity while producing no greenhouse gases. "With this decision, we chart a new energy future by phasing out nuclear power here in California," said commission President Michael Picker. "We've looked hard at all the arguments, and we agree the time has come."
The decision comes even as California expands its fight against global warming. Owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Diablo Canyon is the state's largest power plant, supplying 9 percent of California's electricity while producing no greenhouse gases. "With this decision, we chart a new energy future by phasing out nuclear power here in California," said commission President Michael Picker. "We've looked hard at all the arguments, and we agree the time has come."
Do we have any rails coming in from West Virginia?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
California is run by morons.
No way are they going to be able to replace all of the energy lost from that plant from renewables. It's going to come from some other state, spewing coal and sulfur... or possibly they simply will increase the brownouts, but it's OK because all of the large cash cows have learned to have their own generation facilities for anything important.
Nuclear energy is the cheapest form above all the others, it's a shame to see the world fold this away even as they scream the Earth needs saving. You were saving it friend, and now you are letting it go.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You sure about that? Germany's economy is larger than CA but using renewables they have more energy than they can use.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Natural Gas is still a lot safer and solar is cheaper. That probably wouldn't be true if American's political climate wasn't so crazy. The mad rush to privatize things that shouldn't be privatized coupled with our bad habit of looking the other way on regulation means nuclear power is risky. Government run enterprises tend to be very, very efficient unless they're being run as pork. e.g. the DMV and Post Office both do amazing things (as long as you don't live in the South, where the DMV massively underfunded). That means there really isn't much profit to be had privatizing it without cutting corners on safety and, well, look at Fukushima. A completely preventable disaster that nearly destroyed a city...
And don't forget that we can't recycle the fuel because we're terrified some of it will get lost and turned into nukes. Not that it's ever stopped anyone from getting them (re: North Korea).
TLDR; Get Americans to stop privatizing dangerous things and allow the waste to be recycled and we'll put nuclear back in rotation.
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California -- the only US state to experience rolling blackouts due to incompetent "central planning". More to be coming soon...
Are you referring to the market manipulation conducted by the energy traders empowered in the Bush years?
"Burn baby burn!" I still remember that recording. It sounded like a callow frat boy getting his first lap dance. But he had reason -- hundreds of millions were sucked out of the state but the combination of a fire and rigging the electricity supply.
Once the "free market" was brought under proper regulation we have had no rolling blackouts.
Germany also has the highest household electricity prices in Europe with Denmark, IIRC, roughly 33-50% above the EU median and the bouts of having more energy than they can use do not help at all with that although it does help companies in Europe who get paid to "dispose" of the excess when-ever needed. From what I can find online, CA would probably need 50-100% increase in household electricity kWh rates to reach similar pricing.
Using renewables and nuclear power imported from fance.
Germany's economy is larger than CA but using renewables they have more energy than they can use.
Nope.
During brief times of year, that MAY be true, as with the headline you are thinking of where German power pricing was negative on Christmas day in December.
However most of the time Germans are importing power because they shut down all nuclear plants - they are currently producing about 35% of their power from renewables
But all that importing and expensive renewable power facilities means that Germans pay some of the highest power rates in the world. Even if on Christmas you do get a break because the office buildings are shut down...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Diablo Canyon Power Plant is in San Luis Obispo County, on the beach, and near two different faults. Given recent seismic events in California they may just be deciding it is past time the plants are removed as a major ecological hazard in the event of seismic activities or a Fukushima Daiichi grade Tsunami.
Given that the plants are almost 50 years old and pressurized water reactors, it seems like there are a half dozen individual reasons worthy of shutting it down, and legislators have thankfully chosen to shut it down before fate takes the choice away from them. While I agree that the loss of 6 percent of the power supply in California is damaging, I think it will likely help spur future solar/wind/hydro/geo plants in California, while also offering the opportunity to consider battery backups for buffering peak loads and offering an alternative to fast ramps of power plants which often waste power and raise either emissions or maintenance costs when conducted.
With batteries and renewables a large quantity of power can be buffered, helping to reduce the loading of power generation facilities across the state and help ensure both California's future power independence as well as avoiding voltage and current irregularities that exist today.
Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Big One is going to hit in two months.
California doesn't have big ones because it has lots of little one.
Oregon is the state with the big one looming. It's been building since the last magnitude 9 in 1700.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Germany is not importing power.
We export about 1/3rd of our power generation.
We mostly are a transit country for exports into our neighbours, some charts show this as import, but they usulally have also transit charts or export charts.
Get a damn clue, moron.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually, California is due Real Soon Now (in human, not geologic, time) for a really big one on the Hayward fault (parallel to, and just across the bay from, the more famous, and more recently active, San Andreas).
I was looking at where it runs recently. It runs right under hospital row in Fremont - literally through the parking lot that separates my doctor's office building (and a surgery center) from the BART tracks. Right up the main driveway into the Kaiser medical complex.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Diablo canyon is down the road.
I've got nothing against nuclear. I toured the plant last year or the year before. Super impressive.
Anyway, it's my understanding that Diablo Canyon isn't being shut down by regulators so much as PG&E can't make a profit from it. Solar and Gas are too cheap for [heavily regulated] nuclear to be profitable.
Here's the story from 18 months ago:
http://beta.latimes.com/busine...
News?
The numbeds for power prices are wrong.
I doubt anyone pays more than 25cents, on a remote north sea island, perhaps.
I pay 18 cents, and could drop that perhaps to 18 or 14 if I was not to lazy to switch provider.
The average is hardly above 22 cents.
kW/h prices are hardly relevant anyway, relevant is the total amount you pay per month or the percentage of your income.
And in that regard Germany is quite low. I pay 100Euro a month for electricity AND natural gas.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Looking at 2017 (expand the timeline to the year) - it sure does look like they export most of the time - with a few blips of import. Looking over other graphs I saw them import from France but on the *same* day they were exporting 10 times that amount to other countries - so end result.... a power grid working as designed to move power from one spot to another - that sometimes results in imports that wouldn't be needed if the country was in isolation?
California can just outlaw air conditioning.
Have gnu, will travel.
1. No, we aren't seeing blackouts in California due to a lack of power generation facilities. California has been quite proactive in planning its energy needs. The vast majority of blackouts in California are due to wildfires and weather events.
2. The site you reference is from the Institute for Energy Research, an organization started by Enron’s public policy analysis director. It is an advocacy organization and a fossil fuels lobbying organization. It has an agenda.
all you nuke apologists can go to hell, you arent scientists, you are ghouls.
Your suffering shall exist no longer; it shall be washed away in Atom's Glow, burned from you in the fire of his brilliance.
lucm, indeed.
Coal usage in Germany is dropping year by year, idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Reprocessing spend fuel just produces more waste, roughly a factor of ten. :)
Get a dams clue
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Would that link be pointing to the "Institute for Energy Research" that appears to be a PowerPoint propaganda outlet for the big fossil fuel companies, and where there's a conspicuous lack of mention of renewables...?
Just checking.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Shouldn't that be "Apes!"?
Dispose indeed ... I find it curious how few people understand that renewables for Germany are a form of mercantilism.
1 Suppress internal consumption with high electricity cost
2 Subsidize internal industry with low electricity cost
3 WTO doesn't dare say a thing, because global warming
4 Profit
It only works because they raced to that particular scheme the fastest of course, otherwise everyone would just have high electricity costs and nothing else would change.
PS. I meant "high consumer electricity cost" and "low industrial electricity cost".
The Breitbart article has two links to the same census bureau report. The report is titled "Children of Foreign-Born Parents Generation More Likely to Be College-Educated Than Their Parents, Census Bureau Reports", and does not contain the info the Breitbart article says that it's citing. In fact, California isn't even mentioned in the report. Your other sources are not any more credible.
They need to take a leaf out of our book, those falls are phenomenal for the UK. But the elephant in the room is now natural gas, it is a greenhouse gas and we need to plan to move away from it. I feel that it's a half-way house that politicians are not dealing with a way of moving out of.
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Why, don't you just come to Germany and read a newspaper about it?
And honestly, what has the WTO to say about german energy prices?
Why are you not happy! The more Audi or Porsche has to pay for energy the more expensive is the car in your country! Is that not good for you to compete with us?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Your wholesale prices, which Audi and Porsche pay are very low. That's why it's such a brilliant scheme.
As for why the WTO might intervene, they don't generally like industry subsidies unless specifically allowed.
You sure about that? Germany's economy is larger than CA but using renewables they have more energy than they can use.
Great example. Germany's renewable energy generation capabilities stands at 33%. Last Saturday it produced precisely 0% of Germany's consumption with import running full steam from France for some of that wonderful nuclear goodness. They have had more energy than they could use precisely 2 days last year, and then only because their energy mix is so heavily geared towards base load and intermittent load with few peaking plants in between.
And they get all that for the privilege of paying some of the highest electricity costs in the world (almost 3x what Californians currently pay, those two windy days where they had excess energy being a notable exception)
Germany is not importing power.
Tell it to your own energy charts which showed quite a bit of import happening over the weekend. That's the thing about having intermittent energy sources. Germany is a net energy exporter but relies heavily on imports to keep the lights on when there's no wind. You imported 25TWh Jan-Oct last year.
Get a damn clue, moron
Learn to internet.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Except that Russia is not actually in Europe.
Except for the European part.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Germany's energy policy is a disaster. Electricity is becoming a luxury good.
Even the "newly" elected government just decided to scale back its energy and climate goals because they are unsustainable economically. That is assuming they actually manage to form a government. Going on 4 months since the election without a new government now.
Kind of makes me second guess my decision to buy a $1M+ home in the bay area.
What kind of thought train does from 'hang on there're some big faultlines here and we all know big ones are due' to 'sure here's a million bucks let me put all my stuff on top of this faultline'
Wanna buy a shirt?
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CA is dead last (50th out of 50) in economic freedom.
"Not only does California rank 49th out of all 50 U.S. states"
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Hmm, yes, that is a conflicting problem. If only there were renewables other than nuclear, that would deflate your false dichotomy fairly quickly.
the Haward/Calaveras is actually the same fault line and can possibly create a 7.4 quake. https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/20/2-bay-area-earthquake-faults-found-to-be-connected/ I watch earthquake reports for the bay area every day, I would be interested to know if the increase in small quakes along the San Andreas south of SF over the past two months is something to worry about. I've not seen more than one or two earthquakes along there in such a short space in time over the last 10 years. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22autoUpdate%22%3A%5B%22autoUpdate%22%5D%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22feed%22%3A%2230day_m25%22%2C%22listFormat%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B35.03899204678081%2C-124.76623535156251%5D%2C%5B38.98503278695909%2C-117.7349853515625%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%5B%22plates%22%5D%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3A%5B%22restrictListToMap%22%5D%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22sort%22%3A%22newest%22%2C%22timezone%22%3A%22utc%22%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%5B%22settings%22%2C%22list%22%2C%22map%22%5D%2C%22event%22%3Anull%7D
>they have more energy than they can use.
Is it expensive to add automatic load control to electric stations that reduce production?
For example, covers for electric batteries, blocking the wind turbines from rotating, blocking water turbines from rotating, stopping throwing coal into the furnace.
Serious question.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If California and New York (which is 50th out of 50) in your linked article are the worst in terms of economic freedom, and the states with the highest economic freedom also rely the most of federal aid, doesn't that imply that your "economic freedom (as measured by conservative group X) leads to prosperity" claim is bullshit?
In other words, you're making a circular argument, but in such a bad way as to actually demonstrate the opposite.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
A 3rd of this country's welfare recipients are in California.
That's a nice little unsupported bogus made up statistic you have there. California does spend the most on welfare overall but since they are the state with the largest population (and a high cost of living) that's hardly shocking. Per capita they are high but not wildly out of the norm - with around 4% of the population receiving some sort of assistance. California is among the least federally dependent states in the US.
It has been losing population for the last 20 years
You must be talking about a different California than the one on the west coast of the US. Population growth there has been steadily growing with no sign of that changing any time soon.
Most of the welfare recipients are white people in red counties within CA, actually. It's weird how much you hate them.
Most of the states that depend most heavily on federal aid are strongly red states. Most of those that depend the least on the government are blue states. Make of that what you will but I think there is some irony in there somewhere.
California used to be 4th until the Democrats took over. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
You made the claim. It's up to you to back it up with facts.
If the Brietbart article links to the Census Bureau report, why didn't you link to the report directly? Let's click on it and see... Oh, it doesn't support the claim that 930k people left CA between the dates given in the Brietbart article!
Wikipedia is a better source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There are multiple sources in that data, and you can see that the population did not fall.
Brietbart seems to have realized that it's easy for people to call bullshit on unsourced claims, so they started to throw in some sources that look authoritative but which don't actually support what they are saying. I guess their assumption is that most people won't bother to read the sources, they will just assume that they add credibility to the story.
CA is dead last (50th out of 50) in economic freedom.
Or put another way it has the best environmental and consumer protections.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Calling people stupid works better as an insult when you spell 'peddling lies' correctly.
Buildings can withstand very large earthquakes without any major problems these days. Look at Japan. The problems are mostly in places that don't have regular large earthquakes, because people get complacent.
For example, if you live in Japan you arrange your stuff so that when the house shakes it doesn't get trashed. You put your TV on isolation pads, you don't use heavy pendant lights, tall bookcases are screwed in to the wall etc. That's why they get hit with a magnitude 7 or 8 every now and again and few people are hurt, where as in other countries a magnitude 5 kills hundreds.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
California is currently failing in many respects.
And yet you didn't name one. Why waste your swarm of bots modding up a pointless tirade from a known troll?
The national economy is up around 3%, and California revenues are also up about 2.9 % [ca.gov].
That's about a 1:1 ratio, but CA grew at twice the rate of the economy in 2016. Their growth is significantly slowed since about two years ago. Also, that 2.9% increase in revenues is offset by about 2% increase in expenses, so it's not going to reduce their deficit a lot.
Reducing their deficit? Were they trying? If not, so what? Not that you've actually cited your meaningful claims here, or established a significance in one year being different from another. What you've done is randomly throw stuff together in a stew. The problem is, you've managed to toss in some rusty nails, used diapers, and newspapers.
Their labor force shrank from 62.1% to 59.1% in that same time - a huge decrease to happen in just over a year. [blogspot.com]
in fact, you're misrepresenting the claims. Here's what they did say:
In this chart, we find that California's employment to population ratio peaked at 59.2% in December 2016, having slowly declined to 59.0% through October 2017. Meanwhile, California's labor force to population ratio last peaked at 62.6% in October 2016, which has since dropped to 62.1% a year later.
You just threw two numbers together, without actually recognizing they were different (though related) statistics.
Inattentiveness, or do you just not know what you're talking about?
CA is dead last (50th out of 50) [independent.org] in economic freedom.
Man, Okian Warrior, you're dumber than Blindseer. There are 50 states. Somebody has to be last.
So... yeah. It's entirely reasonable to predict that California is facing very bad times in the near future.
Oh, is Donald Trump's misgovernment that dangerous? He's going to attack an actual US state in one of his addled rages? I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's good for you to admit.
(*) Don't bitch about linking to Breitbart. The link to the census bureau report is right there in the linked article.
As if Breitbart doesn't have a history of lying about the contents of their sources, and by extension, now so do you.
Enjoy your trolling, it's so useful. In revealing how pathetic the right-wing is. I really don't know why you let yourself make such mistakes. Why chain yourself to the anchor? Why live in a house of cards? Why jump into the cement pond?
Are you talking about pre-1990 before German Reunification?
No, he is just talking out his ass. California has never been #4. Even before unification, the West German economy was far bigger than California's, and in addition to America, Japan, UK, France, and Italy, back in 1990 there was this one other economy ahead of California as well: the Soviet Union.
Links to Breitbart, Blogspot, and some Libertarian "institute". Why in the fuck is this modded "Insightful"? The fucking Breitbart link doesn't even support the claim the article is making.
This is just a massive amount of projection. California's policies under Jerry Brown have balanced the budget and moved onto a budget surplus. This has been in addition to paying down the state's debt incurred under previous administrations.
Oh no a state with high taxes is doing extremely well! Better pull out the bullshit to make ludicrous claims otherwise! Taxes R the devil and an affront to bootstrappiness everywhere! California has no economic freedom! Regulations are like slave collars for bootstrappy independents! How dare the guv'ment tell bootstrappers they can't dump toxic waste where they please or treat workers like indentured servants!
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
It helps to understand the economics of what is going on here. Germany provides transit for electricity from France which is why they import and export at the same time. It's very true Germany is a net exporter, but none the less they were forced to import some 25TWh of electricity last year to keep the lights on during bad weather.
A lot of this has to do with a big power split between baseload and renewables with a large shortfall of peaking capacity in between. They are heavily reliant on interconnects for stability. That is also not a very good position to be in. Mind you neither is paying quite as much as they do for electricity.
The red state vs. blue state comparison is flawed because there are no purely red or blue states.
Nobody argued to the contrary. But as long as presidential elections maintain an electoral college with a winner take all system there will remain such a thing as red states and blue states whether you like it or not and regardless of what the underlying demographics might be.
Democrats are TWICE as likely as Republicans to have taken food stamps.
Did you actually read the article you linked to? From your article: "But when the political lens shifts from partisanship to ideology, the participation gap vanishes. Self-described political conservatives were no more likely than liberals or moderates to have received food stamps (17% for each group),"
You complain that I'm ignoring underlying demographics and then you do the exact same thing. The gap you point to is entirely explained by the fact that it is MINORITIES (non-whites) and WOMEN who are more likely to receive assistance. These groups happen to generally vote Democrat. Again from TFA: "Beyond politics, equally large or larger gaps emerge in the participation rates of many core social and demographic groups. For example, women were about twice as likely as men (23% vs. 12%) to have received food stamps at some point in their lives. Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to have used this benefit during their lives (31% vs. 15%). Among Hispanics, about 22% say they have collected food stamps."
I'll just leave this here- Notice how much power California imports from other states.. Also notice the natural gas numbers...
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx
before that's a problem. Meanwhile if a nuke plant goes bad I'll live many, many years in poverty as I'm forced to leave my now irradiated property behind until I eventually die of cancer in my 40s (maybe mid 50s if I'm lucky).
That's the trouble with nuke plants. The disasters are acute. Meaning all the damage is up front. The annoying thing is that if we were rational beings nuclear would be the perfect energy source.
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"California doesn't have big ones because it has lots of little one."
I can tell you don't live in California, especially southern California where there are four or five major fault lines. One goes, the others tend to resonate.
Hayward fault is due for a major slip soon, ditto Elsinore despite its reputation for being a relatively 'quiet' fault line. If they both go at roughly the same time, SoCal could be utterly fucked; depending upon where on the fault lines the quakes start, that might trigger Andreas, causing an even larger quake and possibly triggering a slip of the Newport-Inglewood fault line.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
California, being the most populous state, has some not insignificant energy needs. How are they going to make this happen? It seems like California is good at just kicking problems further into the future without actually addressing them presently.
Oh, Diablo Canyon 2, why can't you be more like Diablo Canyon 1!
Reprocessing spend fuel just produces more waste, roughly a factor of ten.
I'm sorry, what?
Taking the 'waste', stripping out the 3% that can't be re-used, then shoving the remaining 97% including the romg-ebil-plutonium back in the reactor to be burned, is increasing waste by a factor of ten?
You're one of those Pi=3.0 folks, aren't you.
Germany is a big exporter of power, but "Energy in Germany is sourced predominantly by fossil fuels, followed by nuclear power, biomass (wood and biofuels), wind, hydro and solar." So exporting a lot of fossil fuel and nuclear power.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Enron and California was a year 2000 thing, it finally fell apart in mid-2001. The big scandal was pre-Bush. Enron was a case of an unethical company choosing to use the power of Government for its own financial gains - and spread money around to lots of players on all sides to buy the influence needed to get what it wanted.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
>> Nuclear energy is the cheapest form above all the others
Nope.
That was 30years ago, when nuke was subventionned because of the need to make nasty bombs.
Nowadays solar is the cheapest source of electricity. Unsubventionned.
Next country to be "unnuked" : Germany :)
aaaaaaa
>> Reprocessing spend fuel just produces more waste, roughly a factor of ten.
Yes. technically, it can be called "dilution"
They basically extract the bomb making part, and dilute the rest of it.
aaaaaaa
That's the plain and simple truth. Nuclear Fission only looks like it works if it is cross-funded by obscene truckloads of taxpayers money and nobody looks too hard at centralized power cartels (funded by said taxpayers money), reactor runtimes and maintenance costs (also paid by taxpayers mones). Factor in waste handling, storage and the risks of nuclear disasters and the balance sheet goes really deep-red.
The numbers don't add up and the whole concept simply doesn't work. Even the conservatives in Germany have noticed this. Replenishing Plant Wackersdorf - a multi-billion dollar project for the treatment and replenishing of nuclear waste - wasn't closed down by left-wing hippie protesters raising a stink of the better part of a decade, it was closed down by southern Germany state officials doing the math. Some backroom clerk adding up the numbers and seeing in awe and amazement that it wouldn't work, even with the best predictions. Same goes for the most advanced fast breeder at Kalkar - a building estimated more expensive than the Pyramids of Gizeh, inflation factored in.
Now Germany is moving out of nuclear alltogether and for once we're actually ahead of schedule - even with all the fuss about the new powerlines crossing the republic. AFAI understand we've simply decided to front a few extra billion and move those underground, so nobody can complain of them blocking their view. We crossed the 80% renewables a few weeks ago. If Germany can do this - really not a country known for it's sunny days - the rest of the world can do it too.
People have to see the light: Nuclear Fission as we know it is a 60ies techno-romatic pipe-dream. And a dangerous one at that, with a 200 000 year waste problem attached.
IMHO the world should move to decommission classic nuclear fission ASAP. I'm glad the californians did this. I personally don't want to many chernobyls and fukushimas happening before the world finally catches on.
As it stands, we can easily replace Fission with non-coal renewables like Solar, Wind, etc. And the pace of that is picking up faster than anyone would've thought, because costs per KWH are already orders of magnitude cheaper. And regulations are trivial compared to anything nuclear.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
No,
they extract half of the remaining uranium and try to enrich it again.
That means the other half is left, the nuclides from fission are left and the bomb making material (if any) is left.
And all what is left is a brine of high corrosive acid.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What kind of thought train does from 'hang on there're some big faultlines here and we all know big ones are due' to 'sure here's a million bucks let me put all my stuff on top of this faultline'
So where can you build that DOESN'T have SOME recurrent set of disasters AND lets you make enough money to live well on?
East and south coasts have hurricanes (and much more often). Northern tier has blizzards. Sourthern states are lousy with tornadoes (and virtually any flat region south of mid-Michigan has some of them). Crippling / killing blizzards across the upper tier. Floods. Forest fires. Then there's a bunch of nasty diseases that are primarily local and break out intermittently. I could go on for pages.
Earthqakes can be bad. But big ones are rare - far rarer (even right on the major fault lines) than floods and tornadoes are in other parts of the country - and you can build structures that survive them just fine.
Even a 7ish like the famous Loma Prieta quake was, in the S.F. Peninsula, about like "15 seconds of mild turbulence" on a passenger airliner. That's nothing compared to, say, what a manufactured home goes through on its way from the factory to the site. Sure some old stuff in a couple spots failed - and the media zeroed in on them and made it look like several counties were flattened and burning. But they're really not as big a deal as their reputation suggests.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Anecdotes are not statistics. The average household electrcity cost In Germany for the first half of 2017 was a little over 30 cents per kWh.
And before someone points out the large portion of that being taxes, the taxes are what's used to subsidize construction of those new renewable power plants. That's why you really should be using levelized cost to compare the expense of power generation - it takes into account all lifetime costs and eliminates these transients due to unrelated factors, and factors in cost-shifting due to subsidies and over time (loans, interest). The snapshot price of electricity in 1H2017 may actually be skewed high if a lot of new plants were being constructed at the time, which is probably the case.
And having California, with all its nutbags, do the same would a HHHHHUUUUUUUGGGGEEEE netgain for the country.
Reprocessing separates the spent fuel into 3 fractions: recovered uranium, plutonium and fission products.
The uranium is not typically re-enriched due to employee radiation protection difficulties, but would either be disposed as ILW, blended with enriched uranium to form an intermediate level enriched uranium, or blended with plutonium to give MOX.
The fission products are dried and fused into borosilicate glass, giving an extremely stable, highly concentrated and compact final high level waste material.
Reprocessing has been used in the UK for decades, largely because the first generation reactor fuel was not suitable for direct disposal. However, in light of that experience, and the fact that it reduces the waste stream it has been considered as a method for increasing the capacity of a final geological disposal facility.
For example, 1000 t of spent fuel, would after conditioning for direct deep geological disposal require 1,540 m3 of volume of HLW, and 1801 m3 of ILW, and a disposal footprint of 0.1 km2. By contrast, after reprocessing, this would require 341 m3 of HLW (0.03 km2) and 2310 m3 of ILW. It would also generate MOX, which if directly disposed after use, would require 348 m3 (0.025 km2).
The result is that by reprocessing, the HLW disposal footprint is reduced by approx 50% while energy recover is increased by approximately 15%. The ILW disposal requirement is increased, but the cost and area footprint for disposal is minimal in comparison with HLW. Total repository costs would be expected to be decreased by approx €100 million per 1000 t reprocessed.
Nonsense. Germany imported 28,5 TWh and exported 82,4 TWh in 2017. At no time, Germany has to import power to keep the lights on. There are plenty of plants on stand-by. Also for comparison, ten years ago in 2007 (so long before Fukushima and will all nuclear plants still running) imports were rvrn higher at 44,3 TWh and exports lower at 63,4 TWh. Most of the imported power is actually transit as GP pointed out.
https://www.ag-energiebilanzen...
https://www.energy-charts.de/
You make it sound like it is a big deal, that there are rare days where Germany imports more electricity than it imports. But we are talking about tiny amounts (about on 0.05 TWh net imports compared to a production of 1.6 TWh on Jan 11, which was the worst day). Of course, this amount could have easily be produced in Germany by spinning up some plants. It was just cheaper to import. At the same time, you fail to mention that France was often importing a significant amount of power continuously for weeks at a time in 2017 because it could not fulfill its own demand as too many nuclear plants were down.
True, but you should compare to 10 years ago:
coal 142.0 TWh -> 94.2 TWh
lignite 155.1 TWh -> 148.0 TWh
nuclear 140.0 TWh -> 75.9 TWh
renewables 88.3 TWh -> 216.6 TWh
(source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen...)
This while at the same time reducing imports and increasing exports.
I agree that lignite and coal should have been reduced first and not nuclear, but it is clear that renewables are a success and that the trend for lignite and coal is still down and not up as many here incorrectly claim.
Well, most of the taxes and fees are *not* used as subsidies for the renewables. The renewable surcharge was about 7 ct in 2017. But yes, one should look at LCOE.
https://www.lazard.com/perspec...
Instead, look at actual numbers (2007->2017):
coal: 142.0 TWh -> 94.2 TWh
lignite: 155.1 TWh -> 148.0 TWh
So a substantial reduction of coal and a small reduction of lignite.
Source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen...
Now look numbers for 2009->2016. Brown coal: 145 -> 149, hard coal: 107 -> 112. Doesn't look as great, does it?
a disaster at a natural gas plant is a one time thing. Absolute worst case scenario a chunk of city burns down and gets rebuilt and a few hundred folks die in the initial blast. A nuke meltdown takes the whole city out for years, maybe decades. Now, a nuke disaster is completely preventable, but it's expensive as hell to do that. That means there's lots of money to be made buying up nuke plants, cutting corners and pocketing the difference. And if you think for a second there aren't mountains of folks lined up to do just that you're being naive.
We need to fundamentally fix out political system in America before nuclear can be considered 'safe'. As usual it's a people problem, but that fact doesn't make the problem go away. .
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You make it sound like it is a big deal, that there are rare days where Germany imports more electricity than it imports.
I'm sure it is rare. Yet a single grid destabilising power outage in even a portion of an economy the size of Germany is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
At the same time, you fail to mention that France was often importing a significant amount of power continuously for weeks at a time in 2017 because it could not fulfill its own demand as too many nuclear plants were down.
You're comparing planned events to unplanned events. Don't do that. You may cause a power outage, and even one of the even a portion of an economy the size of France is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
Sure doesn't look great. But 2016 is obviously an outlier. Overall production was below 600 TWh. Usually is is around 630 TWh - 650 TWh, so coal use was unusually low for that time.
The problem is, Germany's coal use is hardly budging. It's going down just a little bit, but nothing major is happening any time soon. And new coal plants are actually being built.
"until the federal government creates a long-term solution for dealing with their waste, a goal that remains elusive despite decades of effort." Why don't just shoot it to the Moon?? Would that be really so costly? We just need a really big cannon. I've read it in a book once.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Except that:
a) the price for Germany is wrong, which you can clearly see here: https://www.check24.de/strom/?...
And b)
The taxes are not used for subsidizing green energy, they are just taxes
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Coal actually was reduced first.
Nuclear is only reduced since Fukushima, as the Merkel Government sopped the exit from nuclear power, Schroeder and the Greens had forged before.
Germany never was really importing electricity. We only import when european wide market fluctuations make sense to import. Usually we are exporting.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
When we talk about "import" and "export" we obviously talk about NETIMPORT and NETEXPORT
Of course in a "global economy" in the biggest super grid of the world, we rather import power than fire up a coal plant.
Last time I checked that was considered to be a good thing.
Interesting that you complain.
Learn to think, internet does not replace thinking.
You imported 25TWh Jan-Oct last year
Likely as transit country and we exported it to Switzerland who exported it to to Italy. Did I mention: get a damn clue?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm sure it is rare. Yet a single grid destabilising power outage in even a portion of an economy the size of Germany is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
Yes, and such things only happen when the infrastructure fails. As a few years ago very bad winter wether loaded so much ice on the posts of the high voltage grid that large areas had a power outage because of a physical non existing grid.
You're comparing planned events to unplanned events. Don't do that. You may cause a power outage, and even one of the even a portion of an economy the size of France is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
And without physically cutting the relevant region form the grid, such power outages don't happen.
The last one that happened was in north Italy 10 years ago or so, because they manage their grids different than Germany or France. Germany and France are immune to that. Even if 10% of either countries power plants would suddenly "disappear", the rest of the grid would cover that, and getting imports running if needed, too.
A typical grid like the one in France and Germany has always so called "reserve power" and other means attached to cover unplanned outages.
There was no outage in France in Germany he last 50 years that was not caused by a bagger cutting a line or any other physical damage to the grid itself.
Even the outage in Italy was bottom line caused by a cut in a power line.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
As for why the WTO might intervene, they don't generally like industry subsidies unless specifically allowed.
I was not aware of that. I googled a bit, thanks for the info.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This is in german, and "only" wikipedia.
But I guess the graphics in the upper right corner speaks for itself.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why morons like you are spreading FUD about Germanys power production, is beyond me.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Now look numbers for 2009->2016. Brown coal: 145 -> 149, hard coal: 107 -> 112. Doesn't look as great, does it?
Germany CO2 emissions: https://www.cleanenergywire.or...
2017 coal use dip will likely be temporary, since a new coal power plant is being prepared for launch: Datteln 4.
Where do you get your odd numbers from?
Grmany reduced its power production from coal by about 30%
https://www.cleanenergywire.or...
Plenty of charts to pick from ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
From your very link. Lookie here: https://www.cleanenergywire.or...
2009: hard coal 27.3, lignite: 21.1
2016: hard coal 27.4, lignite: 21.4
In absolute numbers coal use has slightly increased. In relative numbers it has decreased, since a lot of solar/wind/natgas generation was added.
So yep, Germany can talk tough but it can't get rid of coal power. And local greenie idiot "leadership" there knows this perfectly well, so there are no real large-scale protests against coal. And if they try to do it, then serious people from German industry will have some words with them.
Man, you are as dumb as a brick.
Read the damn headline/title of your link.
And graps it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Let's see:
2009: hard coal 27.3, lignite: 21.1
2016: hard coal 27.4, lignite: 21.4
In my book 2009 is earlier than 2016, 27.4 is greater than 27.3 and 21.4 is greater than 21.1
So yep, Germany is indeed increasing coal use, as shown by your very own link.
You are aware about the title/headline of the 'graph' you linked?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sorry, wrong link. Look at the one below that one. Here's the direct link to the underlying data: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/...
2009: 145.6 TWh - lignite, 107.9 TWh - hard coal.
2016: 149.5 TWh - lignite, 112.2 TWh - hard coal.
Yep, Germany's coal use is growing.
The lignite coal usage is on same level than 15 years ago.
Hard coal is 30% - 35% below the levle 15 years ago.
Renewables are up from 5% to close to 40%.
Learn to google and to read.
I'm done with your witch hunt.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm sorry. Perhaps you have trouble reading? Let me repeat the numbers:
2009: 145.6 TWh - lignite, 107.9 TWh - hard coal.
2016: 149.5 TWh - lignite, 112.2 TWh - hard coal.
Coal generation went up. Just slightly, but it's up. And it's not going down appreciably in the next several years.
No, I have no troubles reading.
You have troubke reading as you cherry picked 2009, which was a year with exceptional low coal usage.
Why dont you look at the left side of your data ... goes back to before 2000, right? And then look on the right side of your data?
Then you see an over 30% decrease in coal usage.
Howevver as you prefer to cherry pick, you obviously draw wrong conclusions. E.g. check the data between 2009 and 2016 ...
It is easy to see, for what ever reason, 2009 was as low as 2016/2017.
So what is your afenda, why lying like this?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why shouldn't I pick 2009? Is it worse than other years? After all, it's the year before Energiewende officially started. It was supposed to get better and better after the transition, right?
But don't worry, official data is in - Germany's CO2 emissions rose for the second year straight. Victory!
You make it sound like it is a big deal, that there are rare days where Germany imports more electricity than it imports.
I'm sure it is rare. Yet a single grid destabilising power outage in even a portion of an economy the size of Germany is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
There was no such thing in Germany. In contrast, France had these kind of HUGE fucking deal issues. This is exactly my point.
At the same time, you fail to mention that France was often importing a significant amount of power continuously for weeks at a time in 2017 because it could not fulfill its own demand as too many nuclear plants were down.
You're comparing planned events to unplanned events. Don't do that. You may cause a power outage, and even one of the even a portion of an economy the size of France is not a big deal. It's a HUGE fucking deal.
I can't parse your ramblings. Nuclear plants have far more unplanned events than wind power which is actually well quite predictable.