A nuclear plant’s closure was hailed as a green win. Then emissions went up
derf82 @ derf82 @lemmy.world Posts 1Comments 875Joined 2 yr. ago
derf82 @ derf82 @lemmy.world
Posts
1
Comments
875
Joined
2 yr. ago
The Great Lakes presents a difficult problem for offshore wind. Since it is fresh water and not salt water, you have to deal with far more ice. Ice beats the shit out of anything left on the lake. Though, with climate change going the way it is, maybe it won’t be a problem at all.
Yeah, here in Ohio things are run by Republicans. The party of small government wants to block most renewable development in the state. And renewable energy is certainly no cheaper here. They have also helped utilities more to more fixed cost billing that makes solar (and also electrifying in place of natural gas) not economically feasible for many.
And I’m not sure picking a supplier that promises renewables, anyway. It’s not like you get to pick and choose the electrons that come to your home. You get whatever is on the grid.
I've checked and rechecked my power bill. Definitely not cheaper.
I live in the Great Lakes, where essentially it is cloudy 90% of the time from October-April. My home has a relative roof that faces east and west, not south. Rooftop solar does not pay for itself here so easily. And that is besides the regulations the power companies have placed on it, essentially eliminating even net metering and only giving you pennies for excess power production.
The planet can't wait a decade while we build out renewables. We have to keep what nuclear we have going at least.
We can keep the existing plants we have going. And even in the future, I believe there is space for nuclear. It is still far more consistent at generating power.
And I doubt renewables will make power cheaper.
Listen, the companies building gas turbine generators are not stupid. They know they will run for decades. Renewable energy, while good, just cannot meet increasing demands for power on its own.
Well, nuclear can be profitable. It's just that fossil fuels are more profitable.
But this is also where the government needs to step in. There should be a carbon tax to account for the climate change externality. Also, clean sources of power including nuclear should be subsidized.
Keep in mind that while environmentalists maybe can't stop it, some of them happily join a coalition with NIMBYs and indeed, fossil fuel companies to stop nuclear.
Their 40 year license with the nuclear regulatory commission ran out and they felt that getting it relicensed was too expensive.
No, they applied for a 20-year renewal but faced pushback from the state of New York and were forced to close in a legal settlement.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47776
Indian Point’s owner-operator, Entergy, retired Units 2 and 3 before their operating licenses expired as part of a settlement agreement with New York State. Entergy had been seeking a 20-year license renewal for both reactor units since 2007. However, New York challenged the renewals, citing environmental and safety concerns resulting from the plant’s nearness to New York City.
So when my driver's license expires after 8 years, my driving ability has reached EOL, and I should not be able to renew. Sound logic there.
You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Other plants have been granted license renewals and are operating just fine.
thats past its expected service life
Citation needed. It received a 40-year permit to start because that was the max permit issued.
Lots of things last well past their "expected service life." That is why there is the word EXPECTED. The problem was in the spent fuel pools. They could build brand new ones.
Tell me, what was the expected service life of the Brooklyn Bridge? Should people avoid it because continuing to use it is "a recipe for disaster?"
The fact is, intensive inspections would have been required for another permit to continue operating.
Listen, if you think we should build newer and better nuclear power plants, I am right with you. But until that happens, we cannot just flush what we have down the toilet.
Should we build wind and solar? Absolutely. But we also need green power that works when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, and that is what Indian Point gave the state of NY for decades.
It absolutely is inflammatory. Its specifically trying to conflate environmental concerns of polluted groundwater with carbon emissions, to make it seem like the people who voiced those concerns are idiots.
It cites a "green win." The groundwater issue is absolutely a green issue.
But even then, those pushing to close it down claimed it would be replaced by green energy. The National Resourced Defence Council claimed that "Indian Point Is Closing, but Clean Energy Is Here to Stay." The claimed that "because of New York’s landmark 2019 climate legislation and years of clean energy planning and investments by the state, New York is better positioned today than ever to achieve its ambitious climate and clean energy goals without this risky plant."
So, yes, it was absolutely advertised as a climate win that the NY would easily replace it with renewable energy, even when those 3 gas turbine plants were being bought online.
There are a lot of people who do not. In any case, as I said, there is still the issue of storage. Nuclear is great because of the consistency of generation. It meets base loads. I believe there is plenty of space for both nuclear and renewables.
And you want to talk speed of construction and price per kWh, well, look at gas turbines. There is a reason Indian Point was replaced with those and not renewables. Yes, we have to pay a premium for consistent clean power, but it is worth it.
Building the same capacity in renewables
People do not realize this is a tricky question. Because, no, replacing, say, 1000MW of nuclear with 1000MW of solar and wind actually DOES NOT give you the same capacity. You have to consider capacity factor, which is a measure of how much power it produces versus its theoretical maximum.
Nuclear generally has a capacity factor of 90%. They are essentially always pumping out their nameplate capacity except during shutdowns for maintenance and refueling.
Solar and win have capacity factors of 20-30%. They spend most of their time producing less than their nameplate capacity.
So you need ~3.5 times the amount of solar and wind to match the lost capacity of a nuclear plant. And that does not even consider the issue of storage.
Was it scheduled decommissioning? i.e. EOL shutdown If so this entire article is kind of redundant.
The operators of the plant applied for a 20-year license renewal. New York challenged that renewal due to "environmental and safety concerns." As such, the plant was forced to shut down.
So, no this was not an EOL shutdown.
considering the ones clammoring for it, specifically, are ANTI-environmentalists
forgive me if I have a hard time trusting a source of energy that’s proven to be catastrophic for most life in the past.
Nuclear power, EVEN COUNTING CHERNOBYL, 3 MILE ISLAND, AND FUKUSHIMA, is safer than coal, oil, natural gas, and even wind and hydropower.
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7/abstract
Modern is a misnomer. Most of our plants are 30+ years old. After 3 Mile Island, nuclear development ground to a halt in the US. No new nuclear power began development after 1979 except 2 new reactors at the existing Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia that were approved in 2009.
And only one reactor at Indian Point came online in the 60s. Units 2 and 3 came online 12 and 14 years after unit one. And unit 1 was decommissioned in 1974 as it is, shortly after unit 2 came online.
In any case, why not fix the issue rather than just shutting the plant?
And that does not make the headline "inflammatory." It is accurate. People just assume that nuclear will be magically replaced by renewables. But you can't just do that. You can draw a direct line from the closure of Indian Point to the construction of 3 natural gas turbine plants.
Three natural gas-fired power plants have been introduced over the past three years to help support the electric supply needed by New York City that Indian Point had been providing: Bayonne Energy Center II (120 MW), CPV Valley Energy Center (678 MW), and Cricket Valley Energy Center (1,020 MW).
Hyundai Motors owns a massive amount of Kia and was largely responsible for the decision.
One manufacturer in particular that wanted to save a buck on immobilizers, namely Hyundai Motor.
But it’s the same with homeowners. People live in areas prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires, only for the rest of our insurance to skyrocket right after another mass claim somewhere in the south or west.
I’m only using 92 GB, and am not careful about storage other than deleting pictures I don’t want. I don’t mind them starting at 128 GB.
That said, as cheap as memory is, going to 1 TB should not cost hundreds.
So hostage taking and murder is ok?
Fuck Houthi’s, fuck Hamas, and fuck genocidal Zionists. They ALL are horrible human beings. Being against one side should not lead to automatic support of the other side.
Have we really forgotten the kindergarten lesson of 2 wrongs don’t make a right?
390 down/340 up. I pay for 300/300, and it always tests higher, and at a price less than I paid for 100/10 service from the cable company. And it has about 1/3rd the latency as cable. Love having fiber. Worth noting that cable went to 300/20 as soon as fiber came to the neighborhood for the same price they charged before. Competition rules.
Before the 60s, people didn’t consider what tetraethyl lead was doing. It was the groundbreaking work of Clair Cameron Patterson that finally exposed it. Even then industry fought him for years. I would far and away attribute most of those early gains to the wide adoption of faster and higher flying jet aircraft that thankfully do not use leaded fuel. And even turboprops have seen wide adoption, not because of lead fuel, but because they have superior performance and can support higher altitudes.
But, again, I find it unconscionable that in 2024 leaded fuel is still used. Sorry it effects you livelihood (it sure as hell effects mine even though we figured out how to mitigate it 30 years ago and would have stayed that way if it weren’t for some moron tea party Republicans in Michigan that thought they knew more than experts), but our children can’t wait. Hopefully, now nearly 60 years after Dr. Patterson exposed how bad leaded fuel is, leaded gas can finally die.
I have written about it. Didn’t receive a response. I also made public comments of proposed lead regulations in my own industry, pointing out the incongruity of taking little to no federal action on lead paint and avgas. If we have to have a tight timeline to replace millions of lead lines, so should avgas and far fewer aircraft.
Glad you are doing something. Sorry, it just seems you continue to defend using leaded fuel as well as the inaction of the aviation industry through the 80s and 90s even as the dangers of leaded fuel were well understood. The fact that ANYONE is still allowed to use leaded fuel truly boggles my mind.
You sounded like you were claiming that. Do you realize there is a difference between the end of a LICENCE and the end of something's functional life? You were claiming that because the LICENCE was only good for 40 years (the longest license the feds issued) that it was somehow the end of the PLANT'S useful life.
As I said elsewhere, they applied for a 20-year renewal, NY sued, and the high costs of fighting for the renewal led them to settle and shut it down. But NONE of that means that the plant was some falling apart scrapheap that needed closed, which is what I took from what you said.