General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy California is shutting down its last nuclear plant
California is not keeping up with the energy demands of its residents.
In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of California residents experienced rolling electricity blackouts during a heat wave that maxed out the states energy grid.
The California Independent System Operator issues flex alerts asking consumers to cut back on electricity usage and move electricity usage to off-peak hours, typically after 9 p.m. There were 5 flex alerts issued in 2020 and there have been 8 in 2021, according to CAISO records.
On Friday, Sept. 10, the U.S. Department of Energy granted the state an emergency order to allow natural gas power plants to operate without pollution restrictions so that California can meet its energy obligations. The order is in effect until Nov. 9.
At the same time, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, owned by Pacific Gas and Electric and located near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, is in the middle of a decade-long decommissioning process that will take the states last nuclear power plant offline. The regulatory licenses for reactor Unit 1 and Unit 2, which commenced operation in 1984 and 1985 will expire in November 2024 and August 2025, respectively.
Diablo Canyon is the states only operating nuclear power plant; three others are in various stages of being decommissioned. The plant provides about 9% of Californias power, according to the California Energy Commission, compared with 37% from natural gas, 33% from renewables, 13.5% from hydropower, and 3% from coal.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/02/why-is-california-closing-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant.html
Rollo
(2,559 posts)...unless there's a step up in electricity production. Perhaps from solar plants?
hunter
(38,326 posts)Bulldozing previously undeveloped land to build solar plants is obscene.
There's plenty of land that's already been ruined by humans. Put solar panels there.
Parking lot and rooftop solar is a very common thing in my community.
I'm a radical environmentalist. I oppose *ALL* solar and wind development on previously undeveloped land or ocean environments.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Yes, rooftops, parking lots, even (surprisingly) farmland that sometimes could use a little shade for the plants (depending on crop and local conditions).
Also, mix in wind and storage at the same locations. Make the source a higher-value one, by making it less intermittent.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)I hope California is not making the same mistakes Germany made.
Amishman
(5,559 posts)We need new nuclear plants using safer and more efficient designs (which do exist on paper). Fuel reprocessing to reduce waste is also critical.
former9thward
(32,077 posts)The Palo Verde nuclear plant in AZ supplies CA energy needs.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156
StevieM
(10,500 posts)We should be dramatically expanding our use of nuclear power, not curtailing it.
temporary311
(955 posts)as southern California is a good place for those nuclear plants, though.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)I mean, SoCal is littered with skyscrapers. If they can be engineered to handle an earthquake, I think a reactor containment structure would be fine.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)And his wife still works there now.
Terrible idea shutting it down.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)Keep California clean.
retread
(3,763 posts)fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)sarisataka
(18,770 posts)Air purifiers at their border to keep the pollution out and be an island of immunity to climate change...
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)Unfortunately, California doesn't run the other 49 states and 194 countries. If it did the world would be a much nicer place.
No. They can only manage their own territory. And they do it well.
sarisataka
(18,770 posts)It's pointing out the reality that what happens outside of California's borders will still affect California.
Like their water? They are good stewards of their resources and use only sustainable amounts of their supply?
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)Wikipedia has alot of them listed.
for your reading pleasure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)With middle/upper class Californians in the role of the Eloi and Mexicans/Asians in the role of Morlocks.
NickB79
(19,258 posts)Oroville. Mead. Powell. As the West continues to dry thanks to climate change, hydroelectric will keep falling. Losing nuclear and hydro is a serious blow.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/06/california-shuts-down-major-hydroelectric-plant-amid-severe-drought.html
The Revolution
(766 posts)Many people that are actually concerned about climate change seem to vastly overestimate the dangers of nuclear power, especially versus burning fossil fuels. Germany is shutting down their nuclear plants and bringing new coal plants ONLINE to make up the difference FFS.
Johnny2X2X
(19,114 posts)It's safer than ever and we have new reactors that make dealing with the waste much easier and safer. There are even molten salt reactors being developed that will allow reactors to be located away from water altogether.
Sibelius Fan
(24,396 posts)The Revolution
(766 posts)The death toll from fossil fuel air pollution is much higher than that from nuclear disasters. Something like hydro power is also safe, until a dam fails.
hunter
(38,326 posts)Natural gas is the energy source that will destroy civilization, not nuclear power. Renewable energy enthusiasts never mention this because natural gas keeps their renewable energy fantasies alive.
Experiments with hybrid energy systems in places like California, Germany, and Denmark have failed. Renewable energy will never displace fossil fuels for the simple reason that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. The same is true at any scale, from small off-grid cabins to regional electric grids.
The situation is so bad in Germany that they've had to build new gas pipelines to import natural gas from Russia, something that will have extreme environmental and political consequences.
If we had any sense we'd pick a date to quit fossil fuels entirely, say twenty years from now, and fight for that as if our survival depended on it. Because it does.
localroger
(3,630 posts)Whatever your views on nuclear in general, this is a plant that needs to be taken offline. Unfortunately the fault wasn't positively identified until after the plant was in operation. It was just plain built in a bad place.
hunter
(38,326 posts).
localroger
(3,630 posts)It doesn't take a natural disaster to make a fossil fuel burning power plant a disaster. (I know, I have actually done work in a coal burning power plant. Ugh.) However, with nuclear it's the edge cases that (sometimes literally) kill you.
hunter
(38,326 posts)... and will probably be the root cause of this civilization's collapse.
Wind and solar power are never going to replace fossil fuels, especially while natural gas is accepted as a "backup" power source.
Nuclear power is the only technology that can displace fossil fuels entirely.
The human race has painted itself into a corner. Our population is so large we've become dependent upon high density energy sources for our food, shelter, clean water and every other aspect of our daily lives. We can't just quit fossil fuels and expect wind or solar power will support us.
The idea that wind and solar will magically replace fossil fuels is just another flavor of climate change denial.
The odds of Diablo Canyon failing are less than the odds that the Fukushima Power plants would fail. Even in the case of Fukushima the damage done and the lives lost to the tsunami itself far, far exceeded the chaos of the power plant failures.
I'll speculate that the non-radioactive toxins spilled by the tsunami caused more public health problems and had worse environmental impacts than the failed power plants.
But nobody gives a shit about greenhouse gasses and toxins that don't make a radiation counter buzz.
I was an anti-nuclear activist protesting the construction of Diablo Canyon in the late 'seventies. I know the place well.
I've changed my mind about nuclear power.
Sometimes I ask how many people became anti-fossil fuel activists after a fossil fuel disaster poisoned the nearby town of Avila Beach? In the 1990s several blocks of that town had to be torn down and 6,750 truckloads of contaminated soil removed to a dump 150 miles away in Bakersfield.
Everybody knows about Fukushima. But nobody pays attention to the fossil fuel catastrophes large and small that kill people every day, and destroy whatever is left of the natural environment we are familiar with.
localroger
(3,630 posts)We do not have the capacity to mine and process enough fuel to convert the world to nuclear, and we have no answer for what to do with all the waste. It's not just the edge case disasters like TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and a few other lesser known ones that are the problem. It creates a giant pile of chemical and radiological toxins both in the mining and processing to create fuel and in the waste that remains after the fuel is used up.
The only thing preventing wind and solar from taking up the load is storage so that we can harvest the energy when it is available and save it to use when we need it. Of course we hope for a solution to that which doesn't involve mining a huge pile of lithium, which is its own problem...
Maybe the fundamental problem is just that there are too many of us. I've made my contribution to the future by not having children.
hunter
(38,326 posts)Nuclear power is a mature technology. The first nuclear power plant started generating power nearly seventy years ago.
We know how to deal with the waste and we know how to build reactors fueled by uranium that's already been mined. We know how to build reactors that are "walk away" safe. We just have to do it.
It's ridiculous to claim that something that's been done is impossible. France aggressively built nuclear power plants in the 'seventies and were able to close their last coal mine twenty years ago. Anti-nuclear Germany is still burning coal and has been forced to import increasing amounts of natural gas from Russia, a problem that may have grave political consequences.
The difference between toxic fossil fuel waste and nuclear waste is the volume. The volume of nuclear waste is small and can be contained. That's not true of fossil fuel waste.
Existing light water reactors use only a small fraction of the potential energy in their nuclear fuel, roughly 5%. This used fuel can be reprocessed and mixed with existing stockpiles of depleted uranium for use in modern, more fuel efficient, reactor designs. Uranium and thorium can be extracted from existing mine tailings. We don't do this because freshly mined uranium is cheap.
Currently there is no technology capable of storing solar and wind energy for long periods of time. The storage capacity of batteries is measured in minutes while wind and solar outages can last for weeks. This problem is the same at any scale, from a small cabin in the woods to a regional electric grid. Solar and wind systems are simply not practical without fossil fuel backup power.
I think the most horrible thing we learned from Chernobyl and Fukushima is that humans going about their ordinary lives do more damage to the natural environment than radioactive fallout from the worst sorts of nuclear accidents.
Xolodno
(6,401 posts)A massive earthquake zone and located next to the beach, the same with San Onofre. What happened in Japan can happen here.
Out here, they have been plastering roofs all over schools, homes, etc. with solar panels and continue to do so. Eventually we'll get there. Probably never be an energy exporter but we haven't been for a long time and that was with all the nuclear plants.
And nuclear isn't pollution free, there is toxic nuclear waste that has to be stored.
Finally, economics. The cost to generate electricity via nuclear is becoming more expensive. Particular since energy demand has been slowly declining in California. We're a long way from our peak days during Enron.