Nutty California

[coachg]

Techno,
You crack me up. You are an old man sitting in a termite infested house that is full of mold & dry rot looking across the street at your neighbor’s house that is bigger than your house, nicer than your house, safer than your house and your only concern is your neighbor’s opinion on your opinion of an opinion of the color of your neighbor's house that you read in a right-wing rag. Meanwhile your own house is falling down around you. Classic old man syndrome.



Coachg

[SAS]

[coachg]

[mac]

[mac]

Under the faint possibility that Techno might want to have an adult conversation, and learn something, I'll ask him a few questions--that I expect he will refuse to answer. What he probably doesn't know is that there is an actual discussion about keeping Diablo Canyon open going on. If he was curious, he might have looked for this article: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-04-29/california-promised-to-close-its-last-nuclear-plant-now-newsom-is-reconsidering#:~:text=The%20company%20committed%20to%20closing,endorsed%20by%20regulators%20and%20lawmakers.

A throw away line in the article is this: "The company declined to comment on how federal funds might be used to Diablo’s benefit. State officials have previously told The Times that operating Diablo past 2025 would require billions of dollars of upgrades..."

So here are a few questions for Techno.

1. Does he know what level of subsidy would be required to keep Diablo Canyon open?

2. Does he favor subsidies for nuclear energy?

3. Does he also favor subsidies to develop renewable energy?

4. Is there such a thing as too much subsidy for nuclear energy?

5. Does he favor federal laws that limit the liability of nuclear generators?

6. Does he know how great the subsidy of absolving nuclear generating companies from liability is?

7. Who should pay the waste disposal costs for spent nuclear fuel for Diablo Canyon, the investors in the company, or the taxpayers?

8. Is he aware that the piping system for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating plant near Oceanside was essentially toast after 50 years, and that repairs failed? Does he support including the cost of that failed project in the rate base for power generation, or should the for-profit company that made the mistake eat the costs?

9. Does he favor keeping Diablo Canyon open temporarily, or does he support providing Federal funds--that is, subsidies--to retrofit the plant to be safe and meet cooling standards?

I won't hold my breath for a reasoned response.

For full disclosure, my graduate advisor in Coastal engineering, Robert Wiegel, did the coastal engineering studies for Diablo Canyon. It was a frequent class subject, and I know a bit about it.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

But, away from California is reality now hitting home?

Germany is being forced to increase its use of coal to stave off economic problems. (Russian gas supplies being cut.) The U.K. is also under pressure to re-open one of its coal mines. Steel industry uses imported coal from both Russia, and China, which makes no sense, either cost-wise or pollution inhibiting wise.)

More to the point, Our countries declared position is to be carbon neutral by 2030 (Ban on sale of all petrol/diesel new vehicles and all electric.) Sadly, they are at last waking to the fact that we will face a massive shortfall in power supply, and the Government realise that we MUST build a new swathe of nuclear power plants to replace the imminent closure of of our old time expired present nuclear stations. (Many smaller modern nuclear plants envisaged, to increase overall power supply.)

Obviously, the green lobby will oppose such, but reality will sink many of their flights of fancy, once the lights begin going out!

[mrgybe]

GT, Spotted your name on the way through to the wind report, so I thought there might be some sensible commentary. I wasn't disappointed; you are right on point. As I have said numerous times, the so-called 'Green" energy plans of many governments are pure fantasy constructed by uniformed politicians with no understanding of the massive scale of global energy demand. The "leaders" in this fight of fancy are now panicking.......re-opening coal mines, building LNG terminals, ramping up North Sea O&G production and reconsidering both fracking and nuclear. This was all so predictable and predicted. These people are dangerous buffoons.

Prior crowing here and elsewhere, that the O&G industry is quaking in its boots in the face of increased wind and solar capacity is shown to be nonsense. To repeat previous admonitions, the challenge in oil and gas is to find sufficient resources to meet demand. Ramping up O&G production is not a short term proposition. Ramping up nuclear is even longer. There could well be several years of energy shortages.

[mac]

I wasn't expecting a serious discussion, or any answers to the questions about subsidies. Especially from someone who treasures oil and gas subsidies.

[coachg]

GT,

I coached American high school football for many years, and not to toot my horn I was pretty darned successful. Over the decades I’ve had many different talent levels but the approach was always the same; set the goals high. Never once did I say “oh, we are small & slow so let’s blow off practice & get our asses kicked” as some people would choose to do.

I, like you, feel some of the goals are a bit too high & unrealistic. However, unlike some I don’t think we should just blow off renewables & let our asses get kicked. Some people move too fast for their own good, & some don’t move at all. But in the end, I think you have to at least try to move forward which is why I installed solar, have an electric car & am planning to install a battery system even though I still own, & will continue to own a couple of gas driven vehicles.

People just need to find a balance.

Coachg

[mac]

It's not just finding a balance, its finding a few facts along the way. It is indicative of both weak reasoning and unreasoning bias that the same people who ranted about Solyndra, which cost $570 million, sign up for apparently unlimited subsidies for nuclear energy, and yes, for oil and gas. Currently, the price of oil and gas and nuclear electricity include none of the costs for air quality and global warming in the case or the former, or liability and waste disposal in the case of the latter. What do we hear from the right? Talking points, at best, and ignoring the subsidies.

There is a case for all of the above in the short term, and a transition in the long term. The Republican party used to be the party that championed market mechanisms to get there efficiently. Alas, they are now the party of oil and gas and sedition.