Keep Nuclear Power Plant Open, Urge 79 Scientists, Academics and Entrepreneurs (sanluisobispo.com) 177
A California newspaper covers "pleas" to the state's governor to delay the closure of a nuclear power plant:
On Thursday, Dr. Steven Chu, former U.S. Secretary of Energy under the Obama administration and a Nobel laureate, and more than 79 scientists, academics and entrepreneurs sent a letter to [California governor] Newsom urging him to find a way to keep the plant open because of the necessary carbon-free, clean electricity it provides to the state's electricity grid. Diablo Canyon currently provides about 18,000 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, comprising of about 10% of the state's electricity portfolio....
The letter was sent by the nonprofit foundation Save Clean Energy, which was organized primarily to protest the closure of the nuclear power plant.... The letter details how Diablo Canyon is critical to the state's clean energy goals, which the state is legally mandated to meet, and how it seems unlikely the state will be able to meet those goals with the plant's current scheduled decommissioning beginning in November 2024, when the first of its two Nuclear Regulatory Licenses expires.... The movement to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open has recently gained new traction after a Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report released in November claimed operating the plant for 10 years beyond its expected closure would significantly help the state meet its clean energy goals.
In a statement sent to The Tribune in December, a spokesperson for Newsom indicated the governor has no intention of delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon. "California has the technology to achieve California's clean energy goals without compromising our energy needs. The pathway is through diverse renewable energy sources, expanded energy storage and grid climate resiliency," Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon wrote in an email to The Tribune. "Our retail energy providers are already in the process of procuring new energy projects to replace the energy produced by Diablo Canyon."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader gordm for sharing the link
The letter was sent by the nonprofit foundation Save Clean Energy, which was organized primarily to protest the closure of the nuclear power plant.... The letter details how Diablo Canyon is critical to the state's clean energy goals, which the state is legally mandated to meet, and how it seems unlikely the state will be able to meet those goals with the plant's current scheduled decommissioning beginning in November 2024, when the first of its two Nuclear Regulatory Licenses expires.... The movement to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open has recently gained new traction after a Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report released in November claimed operating the plant for 10 years beyond its expected closure would significantly help the state meet its clean energy goals.
In a statement sent to The Tribune in December, a spokesperson for Newsom indicated the governor has no intention of delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon. "California has the technology to achieve California's clean energy goals without compromising our energy needs. The pathway is through diverse renewable energy sources, expanded energy storage and grid climate resiliency," Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon wrote in an email to The Tribune. "Our retail energy providers are already in the process of procuring new energy projects to replace the energy produced by Diablo Canyon."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader gordm for sharing the link
Let them close it (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's see what happens when ten percent of a states power generation disappears. Worked out great for Germany, coal power has shot up to number one slot for electricity.
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Hmm no. Biggest electricity generation is wind in Germany.
https://strom-report.de/strom/... [strom-report.de]
Coal is consistently lowering, every year since 2010.
Re:Let them close it (Score:5, Informative)
And then you have cases like this past cold snap where ERCOT in order to avoid egg on their face was ramp reserves up to 9GW instead of the more normal 3-5. That reserve comes from keeping fossil fuel plants fired. You really have to watch sites such as ERCOT (https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards) to get a flavor the realities of power generation/consumption. You see pricing along with consumption/generation over time. I like that ERCOT splits out wind/solar but it would be nice if they split out nuke/hydro/coal/nat gas as well on a time basis to see what else is going on the grid. I've no doubt they have the info.
Re:Let them close it (Score:4, Informative)
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Electricity Production in Germany 2021
renewables 236.7 TWh
lignite 108.3 TWh
coal 54.3 TWh
nuclear 69.0 TWh
gas 89 TWh
oil 4.8 TWh
other 22.4 TWh
net exports 19.2 TWh
Use of coal and lignite iis continuously falling since two decades.
Official source: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/ [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
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There are two ways to look at Germany's power production [cleanenergywire.org]: power generation capacity measured in GW and gross power production measured in TWh. Based on capacity, wind represents 64.1 GW, solar 58.4 GW, and coal 44.0 GW. However, wind and solar capacity is not 24/7, so the gross power production is 117.3 TWh for wind, 51.2 TWh for solar, and 162.2 TWh for coal.
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No, wind is the biggest on average in a year.
At some moments it represents over 80% of power generation.
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Poland? No. The numbers for 2021 are that Germany exported 8.7 TWh to Poland and imported neglect able 0.3 TWh from Poland.
It is true that if the wind does not blow that a lot of the power comes from fossils which is a mix of gas, coal, and lignite (brown goal). Overall, renewables still replace a lot of fossils most of the time though.
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Worked out great for Germany, coal power has shot up to number one slot for electricity.
It's easy to talk about percentages. Why not instead talk about absolutes since that is ultimately what matters:
2010 Coal consumption: 3.23 exajoules.
2012 Coal consumption: 3.35 exajoules (as nuclear power phaseout got serious, oh no it went up marginally and became the number 1 energy source).
2017 Coal consumption: 3.01 exajoules
2019 Coal consumption: 2.25 exajoules
They seem to be having no problem reducing coal consumption while also shutting down nuclear power plants. So yes, it's working out great for G
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They seem to be having no problem reducing coal consumption while also shutting down nuclear power plants. So yes, it's working out great for Germany.
Except for being Vladimir Putin's beeatch with their need for Russian gas exports.
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Welcome to what is know as "the world". Germany has no uranium reserves, so whose bitch you prefer they be by keeping nuclear open?
Or maybe you're suggesting that it should be a matter of national pride that Germany burns its fuckton of lignite? That would be stupid.
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Germany has no uranium reserves, so whose bitch you prefer they be by keeping nuclear open?
Other NATO members, or at least civilized countries who are not a global security threat, would be a better strategic bet. Canada has lots for instance, and no risk of us invading your neighbors either.
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Germany has _HUGE_ uranium reserves. However they are in the east, so most people never learned that in school.
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Electricity production from gas in Germany:
2010 88.8 TWh
2015 61.5 TWh
2017 86.0 TWh
2018 81.6 TWh
2019 90.0 TWh
2020 95.0 TWh
2021 89.0 TWh
So while varying did not really increase substantially after the nuclear exit. But what most people miss is that gas use for electricity is just a very small part of overall gas use. So having more or less nuclear has essentially no impact about this.
BTW: While Russia is the largest gas exporter, the US is not far behind.
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Germany does not need Russians exports.
Most gas is transported to other countries anyway, we are only the hub.
Gas is used for heating, and cooking. Gas usage for electricity is extremely low.
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I do cot click on links that have no comment ... should be clear, or not?
But if you like to click on links with no comment, try this one: https://bild.de/ [bild.de]
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I do not click on links that have no comment ... should be clear, or not?
Seems rather closed minded. Sometimes links say all that needs to be said. In this case you don't even need to click on it - that particular link says all that needs to be said just by hovering your mouse over it.
"germanys-reliance-on-russian-gas-limits-europes-options-in-ukraine-crisis"
As for your link, I guess time will tell. Nordstream 2 should not exist, should never have even been contemplated. Would be nice if Biden can shut it down. Comes at no cost to America or Americans. Germans, well,
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I am not sure what you are talking about. In the last quartal of 2021 Germany exported more power to France than vice versa. Also overall in 2021 Germany exported more power to France than vice versa (14.9 TWh from Germany to France vs 8.4 TWh from France to Germany). Especially this winter France was very short on power. In summer, France exported a bit more to Germany than vice versa.
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coal power has shot up to number one slot for electricity.
No it has not. It is at the lowest it ever was. And you were corrected about your mistake minimum 100 times. So: you simply plain lying by reiterating your "wrong believe" or what ever you want to call it.
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In many regions around the globe (including large parts of the USA and Europe), solar, wind, hydro and storage are not enough to meet energy demand throughout the day under all conditions. Adding more solar and wind is not going
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The actual plan is to convert most the coal plants to biomass. PR for the moment will be that it's selective cutting and dead wood cleaning, but it's mostly going to come from monocrop tree farms displacing natural forests.
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Apparently UK has a "biomass" plant using trees cut half the world away.
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In many regions around the globe (including large parts of the USA and Europe), solar, wind, hydro and storage are not enough to meet energy demand throughout the day under all conditions. Adding more solar and wind is not going to fix the issue of availability, adding more hydro is not practical in most regions, and current storage tech does not scale to meet this kind of demand
Long distance power transmission and grid balancing sure would be nice, but it seems we would all need to work together despite innovation of this technology not paying off right away, but that could smooth out regional variance and average things out better . Same with grid level energy storage over just a few hours, lithium batteries are simply not cost effective, they are high energy and power density but expensive and we want low initial cost per load and per kwh over the lifetime of use, but again we
I agree with the scientists, however: (Score:2)
Earthquakes (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Earthquakes (Score:2)
Re: Earthquakes (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks California should be importing power has clearly forgotten what happened with Enron.
Are you attempting to counter a technical discussion with stupidity in the financial sector? Don't do that. That is whataboutism. Solve the problems which allowed Enron to happen, don't just abstain from the technical solution that works perfectly fine all over the world.
Trading power isn't rocket surgery, brain science, or even magic.
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Current new plants in Europe are protected to take 10 years to come online,
When the energy crisis in Europe really deepens, you can bet that will shrink to five years..
China plans to build 150 nuclear reactors in 15 years. [bloomberg.com]
If you remove roadblocks nuclear plants can be built quickly and safely.
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Wishful thinking but I doubt it. The anti-nuclear and Green lobby is too entrenched and politicians too spineless to make the hard decisions. The electoral cycle works against it as well
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When the energy crisis in Europe really deepens, you can bet that will shrink to five years..
There is no energy crisis in Europe.
No idea how you come to that dumb idea.
If you remove roadblocks nuclear plants can be built quickly and safely.
There are no roadblocks to remove.
China plans to build 150 nuclear reactors in 15 years.
Yes, and I will have 150 children in 15 years. Just making about 10 per year, I can even be lazy, take one month for each woman and even can take 2 month off each year.
Oh, you had some
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Given that all the nuclear plants currently under construction have slipped to 20 year timescales already, I doubt they will suddenly speed up. In fact another new delay was discovered recently - the identical plant being built in China by EDF has a serious design flaw.
The energy crisis is mostly due to high gas prices. You can't easily substitute electricity for gas. It is possible to remove gas boilers for hot water and heating, to be replaced by an electric heat pump, but it's expensive.
As for China's pl
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" It is possible to remove gas boilers for hot water and heating, to be replaced by an electric heat pump, but it's expensive."
Also, there's no production capacity for everybody wanting to move to heat pumps. There is production capacity for current market, and a bit more - but the current market is for new constructions and _some_ upgrades.
Nuclear's carbon lifecycle is 6g (3.2g in Canada) (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon Footprints carbon lifecycle 2021 study by UNECE LCA ...put nuclear at 6g CO2eq /kWh.
https://unece.org/sites/defaul... [unece.org]
The UNECE 2020 is represented here on Wikipedia with a nice table (2nd table down):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It shows nuclear as THE LOWEST CARBON source of electricity /kWh. That's LIFECYCLE.
I see some comments here about some particular part of the nuclear lifecycle that the poster assumes UNECE overlooked? No, that's typical anti-nuclear FUD.
LIFECYCLE means LIFECYCLE. Nuclear IS LOW CAROBN. According to UNECE, it is THE LOWEST.
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The second table down is for the EU, and doesn't account for decommissioning because at the time of the report it hadn't been completed yet. In fact much of it won't be completed in our lifetimes, e.g. the UK's old reactors won't be cleaned up until near the end of the century in the most optimistic case.
The IPCC table, the first one, is much more useful. As you can see it gives a range of values for nuclear, depending mostly on the fuel cycle. It can be on a par with wind energy, but can also be much much
Hmmmmm (Score:2)
And Calif. Better build (Score:2)
Only 79? Then definitely shut it down! (Score:2)
Such a tiny number means there is not good reason to keep it running beyond some specialized interest by some people.
Newsom is a tool (Score:3)
I live in San Diego, our energy prices have skyrocketed recently. I'm in a 1 bedroom apartment, nothing has changed in the last 2 years, but my SDG&E bill has gone from about $25/month last year to $55 last month.
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Hmm. I have a relative in San Diego that told me to "watch out" for sky-rocketing electric bills. Soon, LA followed, and a company called "Enron" entered the news-cycles. I wonder if SD is a canary? I will keep this in mind as I budget for the next year.
Nuclear as bridge power to something else (Score:2)
Keeping the old nuclear plants alive past their expected life may be necessary but it does seem dumb. At the time most of these plants were designed the technology was still quite immature. The plants are old and could very well have surprises. What is needed is a program to build new plants that can, like wartime production, be manufactured quickly and deployed to replace the plants still burning fossil fuels. Wind and solar will not fill the bill, unless one is prepared to be planet-bound and revert to an
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If wind was enough for the voyages of our forefathers, it should be enough for our children ;)
Whatever happened to "trust the science"? (Score:2)
Sorry ... (Score:2)
... but this is a religious matter, not a matter for facts and logic.
Saint Solar and Our Lady of Hydro are not going to tolerate your energy apostasy. All things nuclear are of the evil one.
Why take two steps backwards? (Score:2)
Any rational person will realize fairly soon (insightful people have realized it for at least 20 years) that nuclear fusion (barring some unexpected breakthrough in fission in the next 30 years which would be foolish to count on as that would be, well, "unexpected") must be part of the solution if the world is going to dramatically cut CO2 emissions.
It will seem really foolish to be building new nuclear plants and waiting for them to come online while we are still in the process of decommissioning Diablo Ca
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You won't see fusion powering anything in your lifetime. Some day, yes, but it's a long way off still. It's been promised for decades and progress has been slow.
CA needs to also build new nuclear plants (Score:2)
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsense. Nuclear power not on the list of the major nitrous oxide emissions activities of man. Rather agriculture, fossil fuel burning, manufacturing (fertilizer and plastics to be specific), and waste water treatment are number one through four.
You're another self-imagined "greenie" that can't understand math and relative magnitudes.
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Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:4, Informative)
You seem to be ignorant of chemistry. The concern with nitric acid production and use is the nitrous oxides formed from either the production of the acid or use of them. For production, catalysts are now used to make the tail gases produce yet more nitric acid, instead of wastefully releasing the oxides.
Then we have the issue of production by use of nitric acid.
The amount used by nuclear power industry is totally negligible compared to the monstrous qualities used in other industries I mentioned, it doesn't matter. Orders of magnitude smaller,
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Nonsense. Nuclear power not on the list of the major nitrous oxide emissions activities of man.
First up, Nitric Acid is not nitrous oxide. The video is talking about the use of Nitric Acid in the enrichment of nuclear fuels, specifically Urinal Nitrate Hexahydrate and the production of uranium metal for use as reactor fuel.
Nonsense. Nuclear power not on the list of the major nitrous oxide emissions activities of man. Rather agriculture, fossil fuel burning,
Second, most mining and ore refining equipment burns diesel which produces significant nitrous oxide emissions. The other option is to use acid leach mining which produces radioactive sulfuric acid. So it's pretty bad either way.
You're another self-imagined "greenie" that can't understand math and relative magnitudes.
IIRC, lifetime fueling of an AP1000 reactor (as a
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:5, Interesting)
Solar is one of the most ecologically damaging things when factoring in mining+fabrication for solar panels and for batteries. Hydro is horrible for migrating fish. Wind is horrible for migrating birds and increases the extremes of thermal gradients by making it harder for them to balance out, resulting in more severe weather on both the hot and cold ends and bigger storms when they finally overcome that higher energy differential. Tidal increases the extremes of thermal gradients much like wind, but on a more subtle yet more severe scale within the ocean. Geothermal saps energy from a finite supply that ultimately is what drives the Earth's magnetosphere and holds in the freaking atmosphere. Nuclear is by far the greenest and cleanest energy we have save perhaps for methane captured as natural gas from animal/Human waste - which is effectively scrap solar from farming operations without all the nasty chemicals in PV solar - but is at best carbon neutral; or perhaps solar-thermal, though maintenance there is rough and hard to actually quantify the impact of. If you want a green/eco-friendly energy generator nuclear is by far the simplest and most effective way to go.
There are some valid complaints in here, some ones that would be valid if the magnitudes weren't so ridiculous, and some that are simply words used in silly ways.
Please explain what you mean here: "Geothermal saps energy from a finite supply that ultimately is what drives the Earth's magnetosphere and holds in the freaking atmosphere."
If you mean that drawing energy from near-surface thermal gradients will eventually stop plate tectonics/magmatic convection... you're right! But let's compare tapping those gradients to, oh, volcanoes. Care to say what "finite supply" means here?
If you mean that we'll somehow allow solar radiation to strip away the atmosphere (which is "held in" by gravity) once the magnetosphere is reduced in strength... you're right! But let's be realistic about mechanisms and magnitudes/speeds, and the other changes incurred if the magnetosphere reduces naturally, as it has many, many times.
Your objections to thermal gradients seem to be in the wrong directions and unrealistic as to magnitudes; things like capturing tidal energy and wind energy /reduce/ those gradients over length scales of km or more and are tremendously small changes to boot.
Am I reading your reasoning incorrectly? If so, please educate me.
Re: Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academi (Score:2)
They seem to be suggesting the only green energy comes from the inverse process of what stars do. Since stars perform fission, the inverse is fission.
Yout seem to agree all other forms of green energy have a much shallower upward bound. Fission seems to be the method to get the most energy from resources available. Those other forms also potentially have downsides that will impact us far before reaching the limit. Just as burning oil has severely impacted us and we will likely still find plenty more in the
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You can nitpick the details but ultimately his case doesn't really depe
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"Geothermal saps energy from a finite supply that ultimately is what drives the Earth's magnetosphere and holds in the freaking atmosphere."
+2 Funny
"green/eco-friendly energy generator nuclear is by far the simplest"
-3 Dumb
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:4, Interesting)
The researchers found the decay of radioactive isotopes uranium-238 and thorium-232 together contributed 20 trillion watts to the amount of heat Earth radiates into space, about six times as much power as the United States consumes. U.S. power consumption in 2005 averaged about 3.34 trillion watts.
With the combined usage of the world at just shy of 18 trillion watts, that means the radioactive decay that has analogous fuel reserves to the fusion in our sun could meet world energy needs at today’s rates forever (in human lifespans) free with no pollution created as part of the use and no change inward or to the magnetosphere whatsoever. Given the surface temperature of the earth stays the same (and some low temp accessable reservoir like low energy photons to space exists) all 20TW could be harvested, steady state, although the surface area is large and thus rather diffuse (by roughly 30x less) unlike sunlight.
Not practical, but in theory, geothermal could meet the energy requirements of the world, and not alter the surface temp, by using dark panels [thehill.com] to beam the radioactive decay energy of the earth into space.
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interesting trivia about Geothermal.
Almost all that heat comes from the decay of Uranium, Thorium, and other radioactive elements in the Earths crust. The residual heat from the Earths formation is really a very small portion of it. Mars doesn't have the same levels of radioactive elements in it's crust the Earth does, one of the reasons why it's the mess it is today.
So geothermal is still nuclear energy just the nuke part is well hidden from the public.
glad someone pointed out what an eco mess solar cell
Re: Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academi (Score:2)
Solar cells should be well understood now in terms of ecological damage until a real biochemical solution is achieved. People love them in sense of "it's green" though...
Your point though is profoundly interested. If one could manage this well, one could utilize pumping nuclear waste into the mantle simply to later harness the geothermal energy but likely without some natural "flow" the proposition would've a loss simply with regards to pushing this waste into the core/mantle?
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:4, Informative)
Almost all that heat comes from the decay of Uranium, Thorium, and other radioactive elements in the Earths crust.
Na.
Estimates are 16-20TW out of a 44TW total flux.
That's 36%-45%.
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The wind bird problem is solved by painting one of the blades black.
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Mining is dirty for solar and wind, too [grist.org]. Coal is worse.
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MOD PARENT UP.
This post is not a troll at all, it's a in depth look at how nuclear reactor fuel is produced. Thanks for posting that!
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Incremental MWh for nuclear life extension is cheaper than replacement solar MWh, without even adding in batteries.
Diablo Canyon needs to be closed in the not-too-distant future, but maybe another 5 years of operation would make sense.
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even life extension does not make economic sense any more.
Too expensive.
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Life extension in this case is simply not retiring early. Total burdened cost plus profit for Diablo Canyon is $70/MWh; the accelerated retirement actually increases that. Solar plus battery to replace is $210/MWh-- 3x the installed PV capacity plus battery.
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Yeah. Without the disposal costs of fuel and insurance.
Try calculating those in, and you're 3-4x higher than solar.
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:5, Insightful)
Incrementally for another 2-5 years even that isn’t a big number. That is the issue at hand. Building a new plant is a completely different story, but running this one as long as practical makes sense. The real disposal cost is the plant itself, which is unavoidable; spent fuel isn’t that big in comparison, especially for just a few more years.
Re:Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academic (Score:4, Insightful)
Diablo Canyon needs to close ASAP: It's a dangerous design (BWR) and it's on a fault line. But its capacity should be replaced (or more) immediately with nuclear plants that don't have either of those flaws.
People who tout solar's cost compared to nuclear forget: 1) the nuclear cost includes getting past an legislated resistance process, 2) solar is still actively subsidized, such claims indicate it's not necessary, and 3) the cost of solar or wind never seems to include the carbon producing grid backup to make it stable power. Or alternatively, the need for a nuclear power plant or a huge battery array as grid backup.
California's recent actions show that the number one most important thing is to shut down nuclear even if it increases carbon emissions. "Do what I say, not what I do".
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3) the cost of solar or wind never seems to include the carbon producing grid backup to make it stable power.
a) because that "grid back up" already exists. The costs are already sunk.
b) the need for back up is greatly overhyped by idiots like you.
2) solar is still actively subsidized, such claims indicate it's not necessary
No idea about your country. But not in Germany. Was canceled long ago. You get cheap loans, that is all. And a roughly $500 hand out if you install a EV charger - for which you have to pr
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"b) the need for back up is greatly overhyped by idiots like you."
The existence of the "electricity is cheaper than free" events is proof that there's still a need at least for increased storage or "immediate consumption ramp-up". Or increased transmission capacity over the continent, or something.
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Yes the grid is "already built". But it produces carbon on an ongoing basis, not a one-time basis, and some people want the source of that power production to change eliminating all of nuclear and carbon-producing production. All well and good except the grid is actually supposed to supply power 24/7, even when the sun hasn't been shining enough, wind blowing enough, etc. So when those people use specific case scenarios with numbers that solar is cheaper than everything else, implying that if the stupid idi
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Without increasing electricity cost? Until you can disconnect from all carbon-producing grid power, solar isn't really cheaper,
Yes it is.
You seem to have a mental arsine problem about solar,
If i buy power from the grid as a household customer, I pay 30cents.
If I use my own solar array, I pay like 1cent - after 20 years, and 15cents during the first 20 years.
That is cheaper
it's just avoiding the real problem the grownups are dealing with. Like base load, sunset, and big words like that.
Baseload is 40
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" Or alternatively, the need for a nuclear power plant or a huge battery array as grid backup"
Current nuclear technology means nuclear power plants are _baseload power_ and not "grid backup" or "spin up and down at need".
For "instant response" you need gas turbines (or steam turbines with steam reserves), for slower ramp up (minutes) you can use hydro, and for "programmed change" you can use coal (coal plants burn coal dust and do not actually have tons and tons of burning coals).
Bill Gates' idea is to make
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So I checked. CO2 levels in Germany went up last year a bit because the economy went up again and wind was relatively low. Still, use of renewables has been continuously increasing and CO2 emissions continuously decreasing in Germany over the years even after shutdown of most nuclear plants.
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I'll summarize for you.
You're a liar.
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Perhaps you want to check what baseload means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hint: take note about how often the word "historical" is used.
Modern grids move rapidly away from "base load plants", we do not need them anymore.
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Re: Urged by 79 Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academi (Score:2)
Lies keep pockets lined... but hear China is just full of proganda... dui bu dui?
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Let's just point out that in China if the Nuclear plant DOESN"T come in on time and on budget you will never hear about it.
So funnily enough ALL nuclear plants come in on time and on budget.
Any press release or news out of China should be considered propaganda first and foremost.
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Yes, and this year China had broken its record on coal extraction (or use, I don't remember exactly which).
Some industrial processes still use coal (steel industry), but most goes into heating and electricity.
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Earthquake risk at Diablo Canyon (Score:2)
Diablo Canyon is safe -- Reports (Score:5, Informative)
Quote:
"New and extensive scientific re-evaluations performed at the direction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) continue to show that Diablo Canyon can safely withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding that could potentially occur in the region."
PGE, Pacific Gas and Electric, was not competent enough to put a date on that web page. The 1st report is dated March 11, 2015.
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Fukushima was thought to be tsunami proof too.
Re:Diablo Canyon is safe -- Reports (Score:5, Insightful)
Fukushima was thought to be tsunami proof too.
No it wasn't. That is why it had a wall around it. When the quake hit the plant was undamaged and was safely shut down as per it's design and safety protocols. Where the screw up happened, and the bit that everyone seems to ignore, is that despite recommendations by experts that the tsunami wall be high enough for a once in a century tsunami the execs opted for a shorter wall. Had the originally recommended wall be built Fukushima would have been fine and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Cost cutting, not inherit danger was the cause.
Mistakes were made, lessons learned, and the report mentioned was made with those mistakes and lessons in mind.
Like it or not Diablo is a source of zero emission electricity that has been safely working for decades. Letting it be shut down when we desperately need carbon neutral energy sources is folly. Once there are enough solar, wind, and other renewable sources on the grid to make up for Diablo's output THEN shut it down. Unless there is some problem that requires the plant to be shut down for safety reasons then it should be kept open. If it's being shut down just because some permits need to be renewed then the decision to shut it down isn't founded in science, engineering or public safety concerns.
I suspect Newsom's position is more motivated by his concern for his political image than concern for the State or planet. The last recall attempt against him actually led to the state wasting millions on a special election, and his victory margin was smaller than some thought it would be.
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When the quake hit the plant was undamaged and was safely shut down as per it's design and safety protocols.
No it was not. It was destroyed inside, especially the cooking pipes. Hence the brought in emergency power supplies could not cool the plant.
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When the quake hit the plant was undamaged and was safely shut down as per it's design and safety protocols.
No it was not. It was destroyed inside, especially the cooking pipes. Hence the brought in emergency power supplies could not cool the plant.
FYI, the reason they needed the backup generators to power the cooling system is the power output of the plant was zero, usually the coolant pumps are powered by the main generators of the reactors themselves.
If your claim is true I find it odd that there isn't any mention of that damage in either of the Wiki articles I looked at. According to those the on site backup cooling measures all worked fine until the tsunami hit and flooded the place.
Earthquake article [wikipedia.org]
Fukishima Daiichi power plant article [wikipedia.org]
Perhaps
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That the cooling system was destroyed during the quake was mentioned often enough.
No idea why the wiki authors do not know it. I also have no reference, but I read the original articles at that time.
What they fail to mention, too: the 9.3 richter scale quake was 450 miles away. At the area of the plant it was roughly 6.5 richter. And that was enough to destroy the grid (aka tumbling over all cable towers) and destroying the cooling pipes in the plant.
And people wonder why Earth Quake dangerous Germany quit
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That the cooling system was destroyed during the quake was mentioned often enough.
No idea why the wiki authors do not know it. I also have no reference, but I read the original articles at that time.
Thanks for the follow up but unless you can provide some independent back up to your claim I'll have to stick with what my sources say. I'll keep looking though but I have yet to find anything the backs up your claim.
What people who don't fully know the time line of events tend to do is claim that damage from the tsunami and resulting events was caused directly by the seismic waves of the earthquake. While technically correct as a cause and effect chain it is false to present damage caused by the tsunami
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and the post shutdown heat was being properly cooled by the sites back up generators,
No it was not.
Which is pretty clear from the quick deterioration of the plant.
Your SF example makes no sense. That plant is not Fukushima. Ask AmiJo, perhaps he has his old links saved.
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I meant AmiMojo ofc. https://slashdot.org/~AmiMoJo [slashdot.org]
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Correct. The earthquake damaged the emergency cooling system, both the pipes and the monitoring equipment. The subsequent tsunami prevented repairs being made.
The cooling system at Fukushima lost control capability, so even though mobile pumps were on-site and able to put water into the system, it never reached the reactor. Valves were in the wrong position and the monitoring equipment was not working so nobody noticed until someone saw that an overflow tank was filling up, and by then it was too late and n
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It actually was supposed to be earth quake proof, and that it already way not.
The tsunami was only the icing on the cake.
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"New and extensive scientific re-evaluations performed at the direction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) continue to show that Diablo Canyon can safely withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding that could potentially occur in the region."
Literally all the same was said about Fukushima, right until a scenario occurred that was larger than expected.
Building nuclear power plants of fault lines is abject stupidity. That one in 100 year event becomes ever increasingly likely as you perpetually kick that certification can down the road and continue to operate a plant that was never designed to operate as long as it is.
That's the thing most people miss, there's a difference between building something for a 40 year life expectancy and an 80 year li
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I still don't trust it.
Re: Whose fault? (Score:2)
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So, the ocean will boil off or something? Are you bad at math?
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What part of "the cooling technology is so destructive to ocean ecosystem" did you not understand?