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Initiative could shut down Diablo Canyon nuclear plant

November 26, 2011

A California ballot initiative proposed for next fall would force Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear power plants to immediately shut down causing electric rates to skyrocket, rolling blackouts, and billions of dollars in economic losses each year, according to a recent report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

The two nuclear power plants provide 16 percent of the state’s electricity, the report says.

The Nuclear Waste Act of 2012 would prohibit the generation of nuclear power in the state until the federal government approves a site for the permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste and a nuclear fuel rod reprocessing plant is in operation.

Fiscal impacts of the rolling blackouts would include reduced productivity and loss of jobs, the report says. In addition, the state could be liable for more than $4 billion if the plants are permanently closed because of the utilities ability to recover capital investments under current law.

Ben Davis Jr. of Santa Cruz, proposed the initiative which was approved for signature-gathering last week.

To qualify for the November 2012 ballot, supporters of the initiative need to collect 504,760 signatures by April 16, according to the California secretary of state.


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As said over and over, if alternative energy sources received even a quarter of what the oil and other energy corps get then we wouldn’t be dependent on fossil fuels and nukes. Alternative energy companies are set up to fail. The big corps have the cons brain washed, they feel that they need these corp thieves.


While speaking with a couple of engineering students from Cal Poly I found it very interesting regarding the tech that is actually already available. But the energy companies are working on extinguishing any research on real alternative energy. Watch ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’, they did it then and not they are killing alternative energy. Now the oil corps are in our universities, dictating what our students will learn. Who would have thought that Exxon would be teaching our students about alternative energy. How convenient for the energy corps. It’s all rigged and Obama has sold out just as every other prez has in this dept.. But the conservative public is too far gone, they don’t get it and they never will. They want PG&E to make more record profits and they don’t care if they destroy the environment along the way. They also don’t see that they are actually destroying our economy with it. They want to be depend on fossil fuels, Exxon, Shell, BP etc. they have them (cons) all convinced that we ‘need’ them and that we can’t survive without them and nothing we say will every change that.


http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/10/big-oil-u


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You base your conclusions on conversations with engineering students? Maybe we could get advice on how to behave socially from elementary students. Hope you enjoy sitting in the dark. Seriously, when “alternative” energy (I remember when that INCLUDED nuclear) can compete economically, it will be mainstream, not alternative.


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Of course I don’t base my conclusions just on conversations with engineering students, do you read my posts? That was just an example, I’ve read a bit about the tech. that we currently have. I also know a few people that live completely off the grid, they are not sitting in the dark and they also aren’t paying PG&E for electricity. In this area we could live completely off the grid all year round. I don’t how this stuff works but I also know someone that lives off the grid up in Tahoe and they also don’t have a problem. So I know that at this point that it can be done.


If the govt. took those subsidies that they so freely dole out to the energy companies and subsidised the public to help fund solar panels or used those subsidies to help fund alternative research then we’d be a lot a better off. But you just go ahead, keep doing things the same old way. Don’t try to evolve or move forward and don’t worry about tomorrow. Thank goodness Americans weren’t always like this, we’d still be using out-houses and riding horse and buggies to the market and we certainly couldn’t put a man on the moon, it would cost too much.


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Building an off-grid house is a very interesting problem. It appeals very much to my ‘do-it-yourself’ tendencies and seems like a whole lot of fun. However, I doubt that it’s very economical in all but the most remote places. Think of how much capital expenditure is involved? Think of the costs of replacing a bank of lead-acid batteries every few years?


Let’s do a bit of a thought experiment. Suppose I was content to live in a stand-alone building about the size of my studio apartment. Let’s place this mythical building in San Luis Obispo (where we have amazingly mild climate). No air conditioning, electric-resistance heat. The system has to be scaled to meet my peak demand which was about 250 kWh/month in Febuary last year. Now, there are ~720 hours in a month. And, this being SLO, I think it’s safe to assume an overall capacity factor of 15%. California’s average solar capacity factor is 20%, however most areas have more sun than SLO. This means that the energy output of the solar array would be (peak capacity) W * 720 Hrs * 20% = (Energy Output) Whrs. I need 250,000 Whrs for February. This means I need a solar array with about 2,314 W peak output, plus whatever is lost to storage. Let’s make it an even 2500W. That’s $6,760.00 worth of solar panels (although, I could get 1.5 times the output for an additional $1,000) , plus inverters and batteries, which are not cheap. Given that I pay about $15 a month for power, that would give my mythical house a payback period of nearly 40 years, an that’s before we even get to the inverters and labor.


Now, I hope to eventually have the money to build something like that someday (assuming the NIMBYies don’t prevent me from doing it). Not because it’s particularly economical, but because it’s just plane cool, and if I set it up correctly, useful in the event of an emergency. But, I’m under no illusions that residential rooftop solar is going to solve all of our energy needs.


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I own an off-grid home in another state. It is expensive to operate, and I just had to replace the entire battery bank at a cost of over $7K. It lasted 5 years, and was operated during that time at less than 30% of its output capacity for 3-6 weeks per year.


IT IS NOT ECONOMICAL. PERIOD. The engineering challenge isn’t generating power from the sun, its storing it when its dark outside – or not windy – or there’s no running water nearby.


The neat thing about atoms is they hold enormous amounts of energy and can be harnessed to generate electricity, de-salinate water, create medical isotopes for cancer treatment, etc. But nuclear plants (aka NPPs) have to be built on such a gargantuan scale to overcome costs due to regulations and environmental concerns, they become VERY dangerous.


The french figured this out decades ago, and have ‘micro nuclear’ generating stations, which operate very safely, and don’t use fuels that have a killing radius in the thousands of miles.


Toshiba is preparing to build one in Alaska.


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Odd, isn’t it, that Germany, which is located at a higher latitude than the majority of the U.S., can use solar so efficiently they were able to shut down some of their older NPPs.


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That’s right. As I said, I know of a few (one at Tahoe and two local) people that are currently off the grid and they are thrilled. I asked one of them about the cost. They said that they pay about as much for the financing monthly as they were paying to PG&E but they will soon have the panels paid off. Another person that’s off the grid has been off for a long time and hasn’t had any problems. But I guess that there can be issues with anything if it’s not made right or installed correctly.


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I think we have a far better chance of getting the truth from Cal Poly students than we do from PG&E, our elected representatives, or the employees and contractors for the Diablo Canyon NPP.


I suspect some of the new posters here are Diablo workers. I have compassion for their financial fears about losing work if the measure passes but, really, we have to look at the bigger picture here.


It’s not just Fukushima. Does the Fort Calhoun site ring a bell with you? I just checked, and it looks like they are STILL offline. Who knows what the real story is with that disaster. Our country’s NPPs are apparently unregulated–including how and where they are constructed, who constructs them, and how they are operated. Fort Calhoun had problems that had been issues for years, as did the other one down south. Inspections didn’t find the problems or, if they did find the problems, elected not to order them fixed.


We can’t trust the NRC, the NPP managers and administrators, the people and companies who built the NPPs, and anyone else to do the right thing when it comes to obtaining energy by nuclear fuel. We have to keep a leash on them every step of the way. We can’t trust them to do something in the future.


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You’re right about a few of the posters being from PG&E, I might be wrong but I wouldn’t put it past PG&E to have their PR people on the look out and posting to sites like this. PG&E has made some major PR moves in the last few years. They are managing to hire city officials to work for them solely as paid PR people. We have ‘mayor’ Shoals (probably spelling that one wrong) from Grover Beach and Mayor pro tem Vardis from Pismo Beach. I’m wondering if they have other paid PR people from other cities that we don’t know about. It’s disgustingly unethical. What power PG&E can wield once they own our local political leaders. They not only own our congressmen and prez they also are shopping for our local leaders,,,kinda scary.


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There was an interesting article in the news the other day about electric cars and what it actually “costs” to run them. If you take a total electric car and factor in the cost of generating electricity to recharge their batteries, the loss in heat, the loss across transmission lines, etc., in reality they get an equivalent of about 16-18 mpg in fossil fuel. No savings there unless they install pedals.


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Hmm, I guess gasoline just bubbles out of the ground in your backyard? Think of the amount of energy that is used to extract oil from the ground. Then consider the amount of energy it takes to pump it to a port. Then consider the amount of energy it takes to run a huge oil tanker about 15,000 miles in the ocean. Then consider the energy it takes to pump that oil to a refinery. Then consider the amount of energy it takes to refine that oil into gasoline. The consider the amount of energy it takes to truck that gasoline to my local gas station.


An electric car, albeit imperfect, is far and away much better in terms of efficiency. It is even better when it includes putting solar panels on ones own roof top.


Does the electric grid have natural inefficiencies like transmission losses? Sure it does, but something tells me that electricity made in my own county whether at a nuclear plant or in the California Valley is going to end up being more efficient than any gasoline powered vehicle.


Sincerely,

-A happy electric vehicle owner/driver


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You forgot to post the reference. Please do.


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They still leave a much lighter carbon footprint. I’d like to read your article though because although as pasowino posted the point that they’re not perfect and as he/she said they are much better than standard dirty emission releasing cars. Everything that I’ve read about electric cars demonstrate that they are much better for the environment.


Where do you guys come up with these silly arguments? Instead of listening to right wing propaganda try using commensense. I don’t mean to be harsh but really, read what you posted.


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We have an industry in this country that is subsidized by the federal government in a huge manner by being the sole underwriter for any potential disaster since there are absolutely no private insurers who will consider providing coverage for the continued operation of any nuclear power plant. The generation of nuclear power serves up left-overs in the form of nuclear waste that remains toxic for thousands of years and we have no known manner to dispose of this waste, only the best hope of containing the waste for those thousands of years. Over the last thirty years we have seen many technological leaps in the generation of electricity by non-polluting, renewable sources, and there have also been a couple of very serious disasters involving nuclear power (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and of course, Japan) and some very forward thinking countries have taken a very hard look at the real costs of nuclear generation of electricity, like Italy that stopped their nukes back in ’86, and now Germany has decided that they are going to decommission all of their reactors in the near future.

Many people scoff at renewable sources like solar power, but unless you understand how much money is invested in carbon sources, and how much subsidization also goes into both carbon sources and nuclear, there really hasn’t been a true cost comparison to renewable sources. If all subsidies were removed tomorrow, solar power would jump to the top of the heap for lowest costs to implement and maintain against all other sources of generation. If you want to learn a little more, here is a good article about how Germany is planning to carry out their turning off their nuclear power plants.

I’m not sure that this is the best time for our state or country to do this, but this is a really good time to have the discussion, if we can leave the hyperbole and fear out of the discussions and really discuss the facts.


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Just what do you propose. Every single source of energy from wind to solar to coal are all protested heavily by environmentalists and really give little bang for the buck when you look at how much land all take to operate. Nuclear has been operated safely and produces zero emissions and takes up less space than any other power source.


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” … produces zero emissions and takes up less space than any other power source.” Um, I don’t think that the citizens of Fukushima would agree with you, that there are “zero” emissions. I will agree that usually there are no emissions, but when there are, they are dangerous on a scale that most agree, they wouldn’t want to be downwind of. As for ” takes up less space”, how big is the “no trespass” zone around Diablo? You are attempting to equate apples and oranges if you do not include the entire area designated for a nuclear generation site. I agree that wind farms are very large, and too are large scale solar farms, that is why they are called “large scale” solar farms! If you follow the model that Germany has prescribed to, you will notice that they encourage roof top solar panels everywhere, along with large scale generation farms as well. Distributed solar production is the key; Germany is much more northerly on a longitudinal basis then most of the United States, which would mean that they will usually receive far less sun than most of the U.S., but that one, small country (equal in size to just under that size of Montana) generated 12 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours) in 2010, while the latest figure I could find for the US was for 2009, when we produced 440 megawatts peak; for Germany, their amount equals to about 2% of their total generated amount and they are projecting to go to 25% by 2050, unless they really gear up their production, which the article that I linked to suggested that they were going to do. So the math is 12 TWh = 12,000,000 megawatts, which is what Germany produced with solar power in 2010, and the US produced 440 megawatts in 2009, and we have some 30 to 40 more times the acreage than Germany does, and we have much more available sun hours and more intense sunlight than Germany; so what is the problem? Those companies invested in coal, gas and nuclear generation of electricity would be the first place to look, along with how much their lobbyists spend on politicians to keep subsidizing those fossil fuels and nuclear companies. We can do much better.


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At the rate our corrupt local government swindles taxpayers, there will never be a “best time” for our state to do this. Our corrupt government will always have us one step from the poor house.


If we cannot take responsibility for the buy products of the production of the energy we get from NPPs, then just shut them down.


What Fukushima did–storing “spent” fuel irresponsibly, just like California’s NPPs are currently doing–is the highest level of criminal irresponsibility. It’s “energy welfare.”


As a planet and a species, we cannot afford allowing energy users suck up energy–as much as they want–without having them pay for the FULL costs (including permanent storage of the “spent” fuel) of the nuclear power plants required to produce it.


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Well, for one, the use of cooling ponds like those at Fukushima will exist no matter how we decide to deal with long-term nuclear waste. Decay heat exists, and this is our way of dealing with it. At Fukushima, the rods are transfered to dry casks as soon as they loose enough o their decay heat. The fuel rods in long-term storage caused no problems in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. I’m just not seeing the relevance of long-term storage to Fukushima.


Are you argueing that dry-casks (the current preferred long-term storage of fuel rods once they have lost most of their decay heat) are somehow irresponsible? And so are reprocessing and fast neutron reactors? This is a circular argument. You are asserting that current methods are irresponsible and therefore plants must be shut down because current methods are irresponsible.


What criteria would make an atomic waste reprocessing or disposal plan responsible? Right now we have the technology to re-process waste so that most of it can be re-used in our existing light-water reactors and the remnants are less radioactive than Uranium ore in about 300 years. Would that be responsible? If not, what criteria would a nuclear engineer have to meet to be ‘responsible’ in your eyes?


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I think Germany is handling their energy needs in a steadily better way.


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Environmentalists and various other anit-this and anti-that liberal movements have already crippled California’s economy to the point that it will never fully recover. I guess to prove “they won” in California, the left has come up with this ballot initiative as an economic coup de grace.


I wonder how many more millions of dollars the California High-Sped Rail Authority is going to need to convert all of their plans for trains powered by electricity, to coal burning steam engines?


I guess Californians will be the first to witness the second killing of the electric car. Who wants to plug-in a car that can only run for 35-50 on electricity that will soon cost twice as much as gasoline power?


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Sounds like the Japanese government’s reasoning for storing its own nuclear power “spent” fuel inappropriately, leading to a nuclear disaster beyond that experienced from Chernobyl.


What is it about paying the full costs of the energy you use is so abhorrent to you? Why do you think others should have to pay the costs of cleaning up the nuclear waste generated by our NPPs in California? Are you for others picking up the tab for what you consume in general, or is it just the energy you consume?


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The selfishness of the liberal establishment is astounding. These free thinking compassionate caring people don’t give #^%% about how many natural resources they steal from other states or countrys but when it comes to Cali producing there fair share forget it, they’ll just depend on the rest of the country to produce what they need to survive. I wonder how long it will take for the rest of the country to decide to kick Cali out of the union


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Are you really that lazy that you cannot (or will not) type in C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A ? Our state has always been, will always be California, so stop with the juvenile abbreviation of “Cali” please; it really looks dumb.


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Sorry, some noisy comments that extended this topic and trolled the moderator have been deleted.

Sigh! If you have a question about moderation or just want to talk about

it please use Email

If your comment is on topic it appears, if your comment attempts another topic it may be deleted. If your comment is addressed to another user with any other than the correct user name it is deleted.


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Up until the last presidential administration fatally damaged the economy, and the current presidential administration decided to deal the final blow, California was one of the states that paid far more into the treasury than we received back in goods and services. The last figure I saw indicated California paid in 147% of what it received back, on average, from the government in goods and services.


The other states that give a lot more than they get back are New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.


The “welfare” states are Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Kansas, and others. They consistently get more from the feds than what they contribute.


So what is it that California isn’t producing enough for you? We are called America’s salad bowl because we produce the vast amount of vegetables our country consumes.


If we close down Diablo and San Onogre, we’ll have to do without 16% of our energy needs. I thinkt hat’s doable.


So, before you start venting your bile, you might want to think twice about kicking California out of the union. We could probably find lots of better things to do with that 47% excess taxes we pay to keep the rest of the country afloat. But where would the “welfare” states find the money to make up for what they aren’t sucking off of California?


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It is amazing how we let the environmentalists destroy us by promising to protect us… they made us dependent on foreign oil, resisted any type of economic growth and helped relocated our businesses (equipment and all) to foreign shores. Looking back, we will probably point with sadness to all that these folks with ‘good intentions’ have given us.


Not too late to resist becoming a third world country.


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AMEN!!


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Facts is most every country that now produces what America once did is so environmentally sloppy it makes the Fukushima mess look like spilled milk. Must be a case of outta sight, outta mind or NIMBY.


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I don’t always agree with you R.F., but you’re spot-on with this one. I guess now we have to be “protected” from electricity.


We can’t use oil or coal because it’s dirty fossil fuel, we can’t use nuclear power because of the waste, can’t use propane or natural gas because they are STILL fossil fuels, nobody wants solar farms in the Carrizo Plain, and windmill farms kill endangered birds.


You know California’s economy would recover so easily if we could just design every car, home, office building and factory to be built entirely of recycled paper mache, powered by a light breeze, and only discharge clean water at ambient temperature. NO PROBLEM!!


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How about we do what other, SUCCESSFUL countries are doing? Progress to better options to meet our energy needs.


I do not understand why some folks cannot move beyond energy produced with the same source the Neanderthals used.


Of course, that would make it inconvenient for the corporations who fund propaganda outlets like Fox, who very successfully program their backward listeners with what the corporatists want them to think.


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I don’t know if it is the leftist environmentalists or the right greedy capitalists that have us using foreign oil. But it occurs to me, that as a long term stategy, there is some merit to the concept of using up everyone else’s resources before using ours – if you can afford it short term.


I know that is not a very friendly thing to say, but since the dawn of man, we (and all animals) have taken from our neighbors to make our lives more survivable. Instead of using a stick to steal our neighbors’ resources, we use economics.


I am not saying this is the right course of action, I am just saying that looking at the long term is a different prospective.


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We have been doing it for 50 years already, importing others oil all while saving ours while technology increased. The we are running out of oil crowd keeps getting surprised by new discoveries and new ways to extract oil.


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A lot of invalid reasoning being used to justify the unwillingness of those who benefit from the energy produced by California’s NPP to pay the full costs of that energy production.


Do you expect others to pay for all the items you consume, or is it just energy for which you expect to receive welfare?


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I think you give them too much credit with saying they have “good intentions”. Their only intention is to scare people so they will contribute to their money making, “nonprofit”, organizations. There is some big money to be made by scaring people. Just ask Al Gore.


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Senator Al Gore ohhh scary! scary stuff


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Not too late to resist becoming a third world country

you are what you eat


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California, the Gambling State….They could make money if they made that their state motto, then “made book” (?) on whether those 504,760 signatures are collected by April 16th.


They could make a “spread” (?) by getting people to lay odds by which day in April the signatures get collected. I’m betting they get it done by April 1st, 2012!


As for toxic waste disposal sites, it seems only fitting that the location where this radioactive waste is created, is where it should stay, until the residents with the power to change things, decide it is not worth the cost.


We have wind power. We have the technology to harness the power of the ocean currents to generate electricity. Yet, residents are opposed to those alternative energy sources because they don’t realize how much technology has progressed. So, look what you’re stuck with, now: the prospect of more oil development on pristine ag land, and a nuclear power plant that was built over 30 years ago.


There is a solution to all this, and that solution is us. Make one hour a day, each day, the hour we will set aside to learn about an issue, discover a solution, and change the world.


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oto, please check out the Scotland experience with wind power. It doesn’t pencil, or for that matter, even get close to breaking even. That’s why they’re abandoning it as we speak.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-philip/8901985/Wind-farms-are-useless-says-Prince-Philip.html


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You let a prince tell you what is worthless?


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Yeah, and he takes his fashion cues from the Queen. Notice the fetching handbag.


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From your link :While they are opposed to onshore wind farms, the Royal family stands to earn millions of pounds from those placed offshore.

Last year, the Crown Estate, the £7billion land and property portfolio, approved an increase in the number of sites around the coast of England. The Crown Estate owns almost all of the seabed off Britain’s 7,700-mile coastline.


avarice meets aesthetics


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Remind me, how many incidents of leaked radiation has Diablo experienced since its commissioning in 1968? But wait, we’ll have Solandra, BrightSource, or the panels in California Valley pick up the slack. OOoops sorry I forgot, they’ve been bankrupted after democrats fleeced the so called “stimulus” program. Did you greenies have an opportunity to glance at the hacked IPCC Emails. Great stuff; here’s some excerpts for your reading enjoyment.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/


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Meh, CO2 emissions are irrelevant to a ‘nuclear vs solar’ debate. Neither have any real CO2 emissions to speak of.


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What an ignorant and childish question.


How many incidents did Fukushima have before March 2011?


But wait, we have Enron to pick up the slack if it happens here.


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It’s simply amazing Mary. They think that a melt down is equivalent to say my neighbor dumping his oil in the back yard. Yes the oil thing is bad but at least the entire city doesn’t have to leave and never be able to return. In our case at least 6 cities would be PERMENTLY evacuated with a Chernobyl or Fukushima incident. I would like to see these guys spend night at Chernobyl. Of course no one will by staying at the local Chernobyl Hilton at least not for the next 1000 years.


BTW, I received a letter from Sen. Blakeslee today regarding this issue. He gives me hope that there are a few independent smart thinkers left in the repub party. He had better jump in lock step or PG&E will do away with him. If by any stretch of the imagination he happens to be reading this, thanks for the written response. The repubs are lucky to have you.


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Of course there will many that will only be concerned about the cost and close their eyes to the issue that prompted this initiative. Where do we put the waste? You can’t put a price on this issue. There is no place to put the spent fuel, that’s all there is to it. We can’t keep producing this waste without a safe way to store/dispose it.


Trust me, I don’t want to pay more money and I really can’t afford to pay much more but I’d rather be broke then ruin the future of my children and their children by making the central coast unlivable because of toxic nuke waste.


If I told the govt. that I can’t afford to fix my business to make it OSHA compliant or up to code if the govt. would turn a blind eye on me like they do with PG&E? Of course they wouldn’t because unlike PG&E I don’t have the politicians in my pocket (Does the name DeVaul ring a bell). They have been turning a blind eye to the unsafe practice of storing fuel rods in basicly what amounts to big pools of water, it’s crazy. I’m only surprised that terrorists haven’t made some type of attempt to use these plants to harm us. I’m sure that anyone could get to these spent rods if they really wanted to, I grew up on military bases and that plant is not as secure as some of the bases that I’ve lived on. So it’s not just the longevity of the waste that bothers me it’s also the easy access to it that scares me.


If PG&E had some competition then I’ll bet that the revenue, subsidies and tax breaks that PG&E receives would spur new companies to compete and provide us with safe inexpensive power. I”m sick of these big corps having so much power (no pun intended) over our lives, time to break them up. These corp. monopolies are driving up the cost and holding us hostage.


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They have you whipped, the big energy corps have you and the rest of the cons in a mind set that you just can’t see around. You are unable to think outside of the box. Yes, it might initially cost more or then it again it might not if done correctly. If the govt. stopped subsidising the old school energy companies and diverted the money in other ways then we could be paying less. You do understand that if you want anything in the form of investments or if we want to progress that you must make spend money. If you want to make an investment by buying an apartment building then yes, you will be spending a lot of money up front. But that is the only way to make a profit in the long run, that’s an investment. We need to invest in our energy future.


We are letting China pass us up. Soon we will be dependent on China for energy just as we are now on the middle east and So. America. China recognises that the world is using up our our fossil fuels and are investing lots of money in alternative energy. The Republicans are not the party to look towards the future, as far as I can remember it’s always been the party of money now, money for the big corps. Never can a remember a time when the repubs cared about the future of what we leave regarding the environment to our grand children. IMO it would be nice to see us in countrol of our destination, not the middle east and not China.


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I don’t (as I think most others) oppose alternate energy. The PROBLEM here with this proposition is wanting to shutdown Diablo and San Onofre immediately. That is INSANITY!!! If they want to plan out and shut down in five or ten years and have a REASONABLE replacement in line to make up for that loss (i.e. solar or wind or whatever) fine. But to shut them down with nothing in line to replace is just plain stupidity to the umth degree!!!!


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We can’t trust our government, and certainly not the corporations running the NPPs, to do the right thing. Otherwise, they would have built cold storage facilities at the same time they built the NPP.


As other states are finding out, we the peeps need to take matters into our own hands and force the change we need.


In this case, it’s forcing the state and its corporate puppeteers to provide storage for the nuclear waste we produce. Until they can quit patting each other on the back long enough to get ‘er done, then the NPPs will have to be shut down.


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China is also investing a whole lot into fast reactor technology. Although, I think your point stands. Due to cutbacks in scientific research, we are falling behind. And, a lot of those cutbacks are due to the unnecessary and unproductive delays and added expense that groups like SLO Mothers for More Oil Wars ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Peace have added to building a nuclear plants.


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Point your finger at PG&E and the elected officials who allowed them to build Diablo–a catastrophe waiting to happen–without appropriate storage for the spent fuel.


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TQ, you make a very good argument


Unfortunately, the “energy welfare” crowd, who have been getting a free ride for the costs of permanently dealing with “spent” fuel, are too used to others paying their way.


Maybe we’ll have to start a type of “work for energy welfare” for them, where they can stand as human shields around the “spent” fuel and, in return, they won’t have to pay for the costs of permanently storing it by other means.


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I just don’t understand this ‘live for today and don’t worry about tomorrow’ attitude. Why don’t they see that this is what gets us in trouble. We need to think further than just today.


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Where do you people come up with this lunacy of your statements on things? If you use energy, it’s energy welfare. If you use bags at the market it’s bag welfare. I’m sorry, I have worked every day since I have gotten out of school and have never been on ANY welfare. I pay (quite a bit I might add) for my power. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you don’t like bags, don’t use them. Nobody is making you. Why do all liberal types think that they can’t give up something unless everyone else does also. What are you three years old and need mom and dads permission. Just go ahead and stop using tomorrow. We aren’t stopping you.


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What YOU do impacts all of us. Obviously some of you don’t have the sense to do the right thing with out legislation to make you do whats right for the rest of us.


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As I’ve stated before here in past, you want to believe that you have to legislate people into doing things? Case in point. Curb side recycling. When I was a kid you had three or four trash cans at the curb that all went to the landfill. Twenty years ago living here it was still the same. In the last twenty we went from that to recycling of yard waste and household items. We have people recycling paint. All without legsilation. Yes the legislate the cities but there is no penalties to people. Oh and look up and down your street. I bet you see cans in front of 95% of the houses. Did you see that twenty years ago?


Oh and one last. What I do? If I/we are in the majority then it is YOU that is in the minority. That is how the county was founded. Don’t blame me go blame your fore fathers.


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If there weren’t seat belt laws then people wouldn’t wear seat belts, if their wasn’t speed laws then people would be driving 80+ much more frequently, no fault insurance, making your kids go to school, littering etc. If you are talking about legislating for environmental purposes then you are wrong on that front as well. Cars legally have to pass smog tests, a lot of people would be driving without those smog standards without smog testing laws. There are plenty of things that need legislation to get people to do the right thing. BTW, yes people do recycle paint, legally they have to. You can’t just throw paint in the garbage with out risk of getting caught and getting fined, it’s against the law and it’s there to protect the environment, like the one that you can’t throw motor oil in the sewer or your garbage.


I’m not sure what you mean by your ‘minority/majority statement. But I live on the central coast, I’m used to being in the minority.


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Well first off let’s not go off to a different arguement. The seatbelts and speed is a safety legislation, not environmental, which is what I was commenting on.


As far as smog tests, when before they legsilated it, could you go someplace and have your car smogged? You could recycle before the proposed bag ban and save electricity but I don’t ever recall back in the early eighties before smogging became a law, where you would go to smog your car. Also it wasn’t legislated upon the individual. It was legislated on the car manufactures, so nobody had choice one way or the other.


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Okay, but I did list a few environmental laws that are necessary to make people do the right thing and I guarantee that the majority of those people are on the right side of the voting isle, not all but most.


“Also it wasn’t legislated upon the individual. It was legislated on the car manufactures, so nobody had choice one way or the other.”


Really! The next time that the DMV sends you notice to get your car smog check make sure you call them up and tell them that it’s not your responsibility that it’s up to the manufacture. See how that works for you. Are you going to honestly tell me that people especially cons/browns would turn their oil and engine fluids in if they weren’t required to? If you think that then I have a bridge for you.


Prior to legislation there were places to take your motor oil to but people didn’t. To this day many people still dump their used oil and other car fluids in the ground or storm drains. Same with paint. But thank goodness that we now have laws so at least the people that don’t want to risk large fines will do the right thing.


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You missed my point on smog. You couldn’t take your care in pre smog days as I don’t recall any after market products you could put on your engine to make it smog legal. Do you? It was with the state of Ca. requiring the manufactures to do it, so that it was an easier sell to the Ca. people, seeing as it was on the car and you didn’t have to go and put on.


On the engine fluids. I remember my dad back in the 70’s (like most) dumping it in an empty field by us. Now I’m not saying I agree with it but back then I don’t recall any gas stations etc. taking it. Same with cans, glass, newspaper etc. The American public is lazy. Myself included BUT when they made things easier (I.E. give a local place to dispose of oil or curbside for other material) recyling did get better. Same with Christmas trees. Do you recall ever recycling trees when a kid? Either they went to dump or an empty lot in down to rot. Again when they did curbside the rate skyrocketed.


People by nature follow the path of least resistance. That is a fact. So I say if you want to achive what you want, keep the path of implimenting things gradually and you will probably get more done (as time as shown) then trying to ramrod it down peoples throat.


That is my whole point on what I stated just now and on this subject we are all throwing around. If you want to get what you want, I can guarantee you will have better success slowly than all at once. Does that suck? Yea maybe but if you want to achieve your objective do you have a better solution?


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Once again, the temporary storage of fuel rods in ponds of water is always going to be required for light water reactors like Diablo Canyon due to the decay heat. After the decay heat falls significantly, then they can transfer the fuel rods to dry storage. This means that the long-term storage or disposal method chosen to deal with nuclear waste has nothing to do with the use of spent-fuel-rod ponds.


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Oh yippie! Another excellent ballot initiative that will cost the state billions. Heavens knows that we haven’t had enough of them in the past as we are not completely insolvent yet. Let’s drive costs even higher, because you know that Californians have so much extra money in their pockets these days.


/sarcasm rant


This is not a good idea.


.


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These issues certainly have everyone excited. I love the blame game that is going on, no solutions, just blame the other side . . .


I’m not crazy about nuclear power, but I would like to see a safe facility that could store all the high level nuclear waste we have now with some room for future waste. Storing high level waste on site is a extra risk that makes no sense. Of course if any issue is a good NIMBY candidate, a nuclear waste facility is an excellent contender.


I’d also like the nuclear plants to be shut down at the end of their designed lifespan. Running them past the time they were designed to be decommissioned feels like Russian Roulette to me.


While I don’t like nuclear plants, shutting them down without first installing some sort of replacement power producers seems imprudent to me.


I’d like to see our nation encourage more use of solar, wind and hydro – – recognizing that they all have consequences and limitations. But it seems that we don’t even try to develop them to whatever potential we can get out of them.


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Well said.


I’d like to add that the cost of nuclear energy is subsidized by the national industrial-military complex President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address.


Also, nuclear energy requires a strong military and police state to protect. The cost of which is increased government paranoia and reduced liberties.


Our liberties and neighborly relations began to suffer since the advent of oil.


Energy is a two edged sword and carefully crafted public policy is necessary to insure a sustainable and affordable energy source whilst developing a strong culture. A culture strong in private enterprise and value added activities and services (e.g. cottage industries and home occupations). Given the internet and UPS its possible, but Zoning Allowances will need to be reviewed.


Allowing more commercial activities like sewing, pottery, leatherworks, ornamental iron works, tailor, kitchens, etc in your residential neighborhoods.


Perhaps including a BTU surcharge tax on all fossil fuels that is earmarked by law to the production of alternative energies will be necessary.


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Love your fourteen hundreds concept of the ideal village, but it’s the Black Plague thing that troubles me. Do you actually think the sons and daughters of liberals will become blacksmiths, potters, leather workers and the like? The children of liberals become bureaucrats, life coaches, dog walkers, public school teachers, and self described artists. The only place liberals will get their hands dirty is at rock concerts.


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;), lol


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Give me a break. Your mindless radio-talk generalizations only do one good thing: show how ignorant and programmable you are.


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Nailed it again Mary!


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You hit that nail right on the head, Chelsea Clinton is a prime example.


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