Truth in Advertising? Just Say No to New California Nuke Initiative

California does not need nuclear plants. Build them in other states and sell the electricity into California on an as-available basis. Companies making electricity out of state will be happy to take California's money. Yes, putting the plants in Arizona and Nevada will require power lines crossing the borders but this will move the plants back from the fault lines and onto cheaper real estate.

There is the issue of water of course - nuclear plants use a lot of water. Nuclear plants need to be sited ajacent to large rivers or lakes and may divert some of the water that otherwise would flow into California but I am confident people that use that water will be happy to give some up to keep additional nuclear plants from being built in California.

Then there is the tax issue. Nuclear plants, the construction work force, and the plant's operating workers pay lots of taxes. Arizona and Nevada should be thrilled to get additional tax revenues. California does not need these revenues.

Interesting critique from Mr. Patton, especially the part about repealing "...California's nuclear power plant safety protections..."

California has no “…nuclear power plant safety protections..." none whatsoever. Why? Because they are illegal – preempted by the federal Atomic Energy Act, according to a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

What California does have is the right to deny nuclear power plants on the basis of extra costs to the rate payers due to the cost of storing spent fuel rods. The 1983 decision was made three years before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the onsite dry cask storage method at the Surrey Virginia power plant. This interim storage method is now used across the nation.

What the initiative does do is prohibit the California Energy Commission from approving nuclear plants in about 40 percent of California deemed too seismically active for a plant to be economically produced. So, Mr. Patton’s claim that this measure would allow the “…construction of nuclear power plants in seismically active areas” is a stretch as the initiative specifically prohibits ANY construction in an area likely to produce significant shaking. Current California law has no such restrictions, by the way. Again, such restrictions are illegal under federal law unless tied back to the cost of electricity to the ratepayers. Our initiative restricts plants to seismically less active areas because they will be less costly to build in such areas.

Yes, the initiative will “Allow nuclear generation plants in the Coastal Zone.” Mr. Patton left out that the initiative includes language that excludes placement within five miles of an “area of biological sensitivity.” This is stronger than current law, which is silent on the matter!

As for “Truth in Advertising”? It may be Mr. Patton who needs work in this area. "The California Energy Independence and Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act of 2008" is so named since nuclear power does not, in fact emit global greenhouse gases when generating electricity. Neither does wind or solar. If you go to a lifecycle greenhouse gas emission calculation, as the Air Resources Board has told me they are likely to do, then nuclear power comes out far superior to wind or solar. Yes, greenhouse gases are emitted in the mining and processing of uranium – but, wind takes 10 times the amount of steel and cement to make the same amount of power as nuclear and thermal solar is typically maintenance intensive. This leads nuclear to have about half of the greenhouse gas emissions per kWh as wind and about one-seventh that of solar.

A “…one-stop solution to global warming”? No. A pretty good start? Yes.

As for Wally’s suggestion about building nuclear plants out of state, there are three main problems. The transmission lines will cost a billion or two dollars, adding to the costs to California ratepayers. Some of this added cost will be in construction; the rest will be in political payoff money to the states traversed as leaders in Nevada and Arizona have both said that they don’t want California’s power lines messing up their states. The second issue is that a power plant located out of California will not contribute to our jobs or tax base. The third problem is that as the states around us grow, they are likely to need the power in those powerplants we build in their states.

All the best,

Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.PowerForCalifornia.com

Allow construction of nuclear power plants before facilities for permanent, long-term storage of radioactive materials are developed and licensed.

You can feel free to hold nuclear energy to this constraint just as soon as you can tell me how to you plan to permanently store the millions and millions of tonnes of fossil fuel waste that are released directly to the environment every year. The fission products from nuclear reactors decay to stable isotopes relatively quickly: roughly 50% are stable in a week after their generation, 85% after 30 years.

The wastes from fossil fuels are permanently dangerous.

No energy source is perfect--not solar, wind, geothermal, or nuclear. But the impact per megawatt from nuclear is far less than the alternatives, with the potential to get far far better.

I applaud Mr. DeVore's initiative and encourage Californians to support it.

There is the issue of water of course - nuclear plants use a lot of water.

All thermal plants (that use a steam cycle) use a lot of water, be they coal, oil, gas, nuclear, solar thermal--you name it. They use the water to condense steam that has flowed through a turbine and generated power. This is not a distinguishing factor for nuclear.

Nuclear power is less dangerous than fossil fuel alternatives. You should provide the complete truth on energy which you have not.

Particulates from coal and Nitrogen oxide and mercury and other pollutants kill over 30,000 americans every year (half of the deaths at Hiroshima, over 30 times annual US Iraq war deaths)

http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp

These figures have a lot of support in the medical journals.

LA has some of the worst air pollution in the United States and some parts have 15-40% greater risk of death because of air pollution. 1200 people die each year from air pollution from LA's ports.

The study, which will be published in the November issue of Epidemiology, found the risk of death rose by 11 to 17 percent from the cleanest parts of Los Angeles to the most polluted areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties to the east.

The risk of fatal heart disease rose by between 25 percent to 39 percent as the concentration of fine particles in the neighborhood's air rose by a measure of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the study showed.

Data from monitoring sites within Los Angeles show that the concentration of such airborne particles -- tiny specks of solids and droplets of acids and other chemicals -- rises by almost 20 micrograms per cubic meter as commuters head east from L.A.'s wealthier, westside neighborhoods.

LA has more asthma
Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a federal agency, the study found that children living in homes with a higher concentration of nitrogen dioxide -- a pollutant found in car exhaust -- had an 83 percent higher chance of developing asthma.

The study, based on an analysis of data on almost 23,000 people tracked by the American Cancer Society, also found that the risk of death from diabetes almost doubled in the more polluted areas of Southern California.

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2006/10/pbs_show_shines.html
State of California agencies estimate that 1,200 Southern Californians die every year from the soot and smog coming from those ports.

The American Heart Associations position on air pollution
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4419

========
Nuclear "waste" is 95% unburned nuclear fuel. There are nuclear reactors (molten salt) that were built in the 1960s and 1970s which can generate electricity from the "waste". Therefore, if we store the waste for a few decades while new reactors get built that can use the fuel the "waste"/unburned fuel problem is handled.

Nuclear waste is contained in vats, pools or cans. Coal pollution including tons of Uranium and thorium goes into the air, food and lungs.

Coal makes our traffic worse. Coal costs billions in health and business costs (acid rain property damage, smog causes airline delays for poor visibility)

==========
If you are going to count the fossil fuel usage for mining uranium then you should first understand how uranium is mined and where it comes from and how it compares to other kinds of mining.

http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/08/two-chinese-coal-miners-lived-179-did.html

Plus know that wind power uses ten times more cement and steel to generate the equivalent power. More cement and steel mines more mining. More mining pollution and more deaths from mining and transportation.

========
When you say that something is dangerous. Then quantify it. How dangerous and how dangerous relative to the alternatives ? Over the last thirty years the choice of not developing more nuclear power has meant more fossil fuel usage (natural gas and coal for power) This has cost thousands of lives every year in California and neighboring states. You are saying that these deaths should continue because of fears that are not based on factual analysis.

Deaths from fossil fuel pollution (air and water).
Deaths from transporting fossil fuel.
Deaths from construction of pipelines.
Extra costs to health.
Wasted money means money that could have gone to something else that saved lives.

Solar and wind cost more and are not able to be built fast enough to provide the power needed for growth.

There are currently nine climate bills being considered in congress. Likely some form of climate bill will be passed. This will increase the cost of all carbon based fuel sources. Nuclear will then clearly be the lowest cost alternative. The dept of energy energy information administration made a projection that if the Mccain Lieberman climate change reduction bills was introduced then nuclear power would triple in the USA by 2030 and coal and fossil fuel energy would be reduced. There would be more wind and solar and biofuel as well but more nuclear because of limitations scaling up other alternatives. The non-nuclear scenario increased energy costs and meant that more coal (and more coal pollution is generated) was used.
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/08/lieberman-mccain-climate-stewardship.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/csia/special_topics.html

A No Nuclear case was analyzed to examine the impacts of restricting new nuclear capacity growth (beyond that added in the reference case) under the S. 280 Core assumptions. The allowance price in the No Nuclear case is 6 percent higher than the S. 280 Core case in 2030 and power sector CO2 emissions are about 3 percent higher. The power sector turns to increased investment in renewables (mainly biomass and wind) as well as significant investment in new coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration and natural gas. In the No Nuclear case, 70 gigawatts of new coal plants with carbon capture equipment are built. Total coal production in 2030 in the No Nuclear case is more than 100 million tons higher than in the S. 280 Core case. The higher allowance price and more costly capacity investment in this case lead to average delivered electricity prices in 2030 that are 8 percent higher than the S. 280 Core case. In turn, the higher prices have an impact on electricity sales, which are 2 percent lower in 2030 in the No Nuclear case than in the S. 280 Core case.

So instead of reducing coal from 50% of energy now to 11-35% with more nuclear power we go to 55% coal provided power and 8% higher electricity costs. (More coal and fossil fuel pollution will kill more people and make more people sick as I noted above. Plus although natural gas is 3-5 times cleaner than coal there is the problem of getting enough for future demand if that is the energy strategy)

How do you propose that enough "safer power" be generated if nuclear is not part of mix ?

Plentiful electrical energy supplied by expanded use of nuclear power could "fix" another long standing California problem: our water shortage.

The desalinization of salt water is not cost effective at the present time with a contributing factor the cost energy-wise it takes to desalinate sea water.

I can't help but notice this article and Wally's blog entry were both emotional, not well thought out (build nuke plants out of state) and missing some key elements in the larger argument/issue, points that were more than offset by the pro-nuclear proponents who wrote in.

A very typical liberal approach to real problems; not fixing them but degrading them and feeling good about it!

Consider the Delta Smelt water issue or the destruction/tolerance of Hetch Hechy to satisfy San Francisco's water needs plus an unregulated population growth, (Just how many folks should our infrastructure be designed to support?)both legally and illegally entering the state. Liberals don't see how they are all connected.

They say we should "conserve water" and use LESS electrical power. (Flex your power now!-yea, sure.)

I say lets get MORE water and MORE electrical power! Lets enjoy the human experience (wisely of course), enjoy a higher quality of life and not be made to "feel guilty" about it!

October 12, 2007

Dear Assembly Member DeVore:

I apologize for not making a quick response to your “posting” on the website of the California Progress Report. I just learned of your comment today.
It is true that California does not have the ability to control the day-to-day safety and radiologic concerns at a nuclear plant, and that those issues remain in federal jurisdiction. However, California retains the right of jurisdiction over “economics and reliability” of nuclear plants as a result of the supreme court case known as the “sun desert” case, about SDG&E’s proposed reactor in the Mojave desert. Californians do have the right to make the case that the costs of nuclear power are not reasonable for ratepayers of regulated utilities.

What the 1976 moratorium (which is often referred to as the California “Nuclear Safeguards Act”) does is to prevent the California Energy Commission for siting any new nuclear reactor in California until a demonstrated method for the safe permanent storage of high level waste is approved by the federal government. An examination of the proposed initiative measure shows that this “safeguard” would be eliminated.

We stand by our comments. We think that your proposed initiative is ill-advised, and that building more nuclear power plants is not the correct response to the global warming challenges that confront us.

Incidentally, I believe that your credibility as a spokesperson for positive solutions on global warming would be better received had you supported AB 32, and if you were otherwise supportive of measures that propose non nuclear solutions.

Post a comment