California, world’s sixth largest economy, going nuclear-free!
Huge news! Press Release today from Friends of The Earth.
BERKELEY, CALIF. - An historic agreement has been reached between Pacific Gas and Electric, Friends of the Earth, and other environmental and labor organizations to replace the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors with greenhouse-gas-free renewable energy, efficiency and energy storage resources. Friends of the Earth says the agreement provides a clear blueprint for fighting climate change by replacing nuclear and fossil fuel energy with safe, clean, cost-competitive renewable energy.
The agreement, announced today in California, says that PG&E will renounce plans to seek renewed operating licenses for Diablo Canyon’s two reactors -- the operating licenses for which expire in 2024 and 2025 respectively. In the intervening years, the parties will seek Public Utility Commission approval of the plan which will replace power from the plant with renewable energy, efficiency and energy storage resources. Base load power resources like Diablo Canyon are becoming increasingly burdensome as renewable energy resources ramp up. Flexible generation options and demand-response are the energy systems of the future.
[...]
"This is an historic agreement," said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. "It sets a date for the certain end of nuclear power in California and assures replacement with clean, safe, cost-competitive, renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy storage. It lays out an effective roadmap for a nuclear phase-out in the world's sixth largest economy, while assuring a green energy replacement plan to make California a global leader in fighting climate change."
It's taken almost fifty years to accomplish this historic achievement. We need to work faster and harder to fight climate change. Taking money out of politics is the only way to solve the climate crisis in time to reduce the worst effects of climate change.
Diablo Canyon is the nuclear plant that catalyzed the formation of Friends of the Earth in 1969. When David Brower founded Friends of the Earth the Diablo Canyon was the first issue on the organization’s agenda and Friends of the Earth has been fighting the plant ever since. This agreement is not only a milestone for renewable energy, but for Friends of the Earth as an organization
I support Friends of The Earth and I hope you will too. They had the courage to support Bernie early on when other environment organizations, which are membership oriented, were afraid to piss off establishment members.
Comments
In the meantime
New York is about to lose another plant as well. It has already been announced that Entergy is shutting down the Fitzpatrick plant in Scriba, NY, now Exelon is threatening to shut down Nine Mile 1 right next door if they don't get "clean energy" subsidies by September.
Nine Mile 2 and and Ginna in Wayne County will be next. Exelon threatened to close Ginna in 2014 and got subsidies...
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
It is a dying industry.
Vermont Yankee plant closed, or more exactly went off line for the last time in the waning days of 2014. According to the American Nuclear Society (an industry group), it was a disaster for the local economy. But it is an industry that can't function without government subsidies and poses a tremendous danger to the local population. Can you say Chernobyl? Or Fukushima?
This CA agreement with the move to renewables is fantastic news.
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2015/09/28/vermont-yankee-closes-the-consequen...
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings
This is good news indeed
And congrats on FOE for sticking with the issue for decades
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
As Damnit Janet says
"Never Give Up."
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Look at all that tidal power right there
Combine that with wind and solar, also abundant in that location, and I would take an uneducated guess that would make more power than with the nuclear power plant.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I doubt that
Nuclear power density is really high.
Tidal and other renewables are below the numbers on the left of the graph.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Just that long half-life problem
Takes hundreds of years for the lethal radioactivity of uranium to decay away. Also tidal, wind and solar won't create havoc when an earthquake strikes on the nearby fault and a possible tsunami hits.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Power Generation Trade Offs
First off, the "lethal radioactivity of uranium" is measured in millions (U-235) or billions (U-238) of years (not hundreds). U-238 is an alpha emitter and you can safely hold it in your hand. You are probably thinking about all the other fission products. The short lived ones decay after a few weeks and the rest are recycled as fuel on countries (like France) that have intelligent nuclear programs (unlike the disorganised commercial mess we have in the US).
There are a lot of engineering issues with power generation, most of which have solutions with associated risk factors. Balancing them is the hard part. I agree, though, that nukes are a bad fit for that part of Cali. Northern climates with stable bedrock (like the Canadian shield), are a different matter. It's all about the trade-offs.
The trade off I was attempting to point out (poorly I admit) and that you were responding to was about energy density. Most carbon-free non-nuclear technologies have low energy density compared to fission power. For example, France's Rance Tidal Power Station produces 2.6 watts/m^2. By contrast the Diablo Canyon Plant we are talking about produces about 45 kilowatts per square metre. Rance occupies 750m of coastline, so to get the equivalent generating capacity of Diablo, you would have to take over more than 12 thousand kilometres of coastline. Since the California coastline is only 10,000km long, there is an obvious problem here...
Other green technologies have similar density considerations. Solar energy density (at 100% capture) is about 100W/m^2 (including nighttime) which means that you would need 450 times the land area to replace Diablo with solar. So we have to make a choice here between efficient land use and other problems. You are welcome to believe that the risks of fission outweigh any advantages (like we now do for carbon fuels), but just be aware that this is a choice with consequences that may not all be positive.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Too bad the whole nuclear industry is just a weapons program
Otherwise they may have chosen to develop safe thorium reactors, instead of building dozens of plutonium factories that happen to also generate power (whether you want them to or not.)
The US nuclear industry is a mess
Can you say "public-private partnership"? Private profits and public risk? Military-industrial complex? I thought you could ;-P
I don't know that Thorium is a magic bullet, but the rest of the world seems to do a lot better with nukes than the US. Breeder reactors (for waste disposal), uniform reactor designs (like CANDU), ongoing research and so on. Meanwhile, we are held hostage by a bunch of private businesses and military spending. There are certainly questions and policy trade-offs to make in our energy infrastructure, but the US can't even have the conversation because of the history and entrenched interests.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Imagine the energy density of fusion!
An appropriate response:
[video:https://youtu.be/pRhjWdr-LAA width:640 height:360]
And to anybody who howls that this is "anti-science", fuck them very much indeed. Vaccines are safe and they work. Fission power is irretrievably poisonous. Those are the scientific facts. Live with 'em or else.
And this old Anarcho-Socialist is savoring a certain irony that it's good old fashioned Wall Street Capitalism that's demanding the decommissioning of all these nuke plants, from Vermont Yankee to Diablo Canyon. Nuclear has never been able to provide reasonable-cost electricity without huge public subsidies like the Price-Anderson Act.
Congratulations to Friends of the Earth!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Sorry
I didn't completely read your post (got distracted by the monks) before I made my post above and covered a lot of your points and info. I've got to learn to read the whole thread more diligently before running my mouth. Mes excuses.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings
Thanks, love that! This decision is important not just for CA
Decision shows the direction of nuclear energy worldwide. The consensus seems to be that nuclear has lost its bid to be included in renewable energy globally. This is huge! Saner minds have won the battle.
IN MY LIFETIME!!!!!!
Wow!
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Thanks!
Great News.