2 CA Nuclear Plants closing. Will add 8 million tons of Carbon Emissions per year.

[soulcougher73]

We really need to get on the ball with more Nuclear Plants in ths country. These 2 plants alone provided 1/10 of CA's electricity needs.

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.ph...ost-state-carbon-emissions-by-8-million-tons/

San Onofre Nuclear Closure to Boost State Carbon Emissions by 8 Million Tons

Replacement Electricity Equivalent to Adding 1.6 Million Cars

With the retirement of two nuclear reactors near San Diego and Los Angeles, and the looming closures of an aging nuclear fleet around the country, the United States faces profound questions about how to replace clean, baseload energy to meet economic needs and curb harmful climate emissions.
June 7, 2013 | Breakthrough Staff,



The retirement of two nuclear reactors at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California, announced Friday, is expected to increase state carbon emissions by at least 8 million metric tons annually — the equivalent of putting 1.6 million new passenger vehicles on the road — according to a Breakthrough Institute analysis.
The San Onofre station, located near population hubs San Diego and Los Angeles, supplied about one-tenth of the state’s electricity needs, generating carbon-free electricity to the equivalent of 2.3 million homes each year.[1] Meeting the same demand with natural gas, which emits roughly 1.12 lbs of CO2 per kWh, would generate an additional 17.7 billion lbs, or 8 million metric tons, of CO2.[2]
In preparation for the closure, California’s grid operator (CAISO) added 2,502 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity in June, with 891 MW coming online this month.[3] The majority of this new capacity has been gas-fired power plants. Solar and wind have contributed to the added capacity, but to a much smaller degree.
Because of its strategic position between two urban centers and the quality of electricity it provided, replacing the electricity lost at San Onofre will not be as simple as building an equal amount of new gas, solar, and wind capacity. As the Energy Information Administration reported today,[4] new transmission upgrades will be needed to carry electricity from areas outside of the San Diego-Los Angeles area to those cities.
The fact that San Onofre has been replaced mainly by gas has significant implications for the Golden State’s climate goals. The additional emissions from replacement gas-fired electricity will make it more difficult for the state to meet its emissions targets and will encumber the state’s newly enacted cap and trade program.
The retirement of the two reactors, which make up about half of the state’s nuclear capacity, may signal a zero-carbon energy crunch in coming years around the country. The United States currently meets 20 percent of its electricity needs with nuclear, but the looming closures of plants licensed in the 1960s and 1970s in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and other states raise questions about how the country will be able to supply clean, baseload energy at the same or higher levels.
The two SONGS reactors were taken offline in January 2012: Unit 2 for a planned service outage and Unit 3 because of a small tube leak inside a steam generator.
The closure of San Onofre station could have been avoided if not for delays in the restart approval process. According to Southern California Edison, a restart plan for Unit 2 was submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in October 2012 but got held up in the review process by an adjudicatory arm of the NRC, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Additional administrative processes and appeals would have resulted in further delays of more than a year, and the costs of keeping SONGS offline would have created major additional losses for the power company.[5]
The SONGS closure may also add to recent increases in the cost of electricity. The United States Energy Information Administration reports that the closure of Units 2 and 3 in January 2012 created a persistent spread in wholesale power prices between the Northern and Southern parts of the state.[6] On average since January 2012, Southern Californians have paid an additional $4.15 per MWh compared to Northerners.

 

[DCal430]

These plants are inherently unsafe. Hundreds of square miles are expected to be destroyed, and trillions will be spent over the next 100 years to clean up all of the nuclear disasters that are projected to occur.

Conservative estimates for the cost to clean up Fukushima is estimated at 200 to 500 billion USD, with hundreds of square km remaining too contaminated to be habitable. Experts say this is just the first in a wave of nuclear disasters that will devastate the earth.

 

[nehalem256]

These plants are inherently unsafe. Hundreds of square miles are expected to be destroyed, and trillions will be spent over the next 100 years to clean up all of the nuclear disasters that are projected to occur.

Conservative estimates for the cost to clean up Fukushima is estimated at 200 to 500 billion USD, with hundreds of square km remaining too contaminated to be habitable. Experts say this is just the first in a wave of nuclear disasters that will devastate the earth.

Who cares I think Global Warming will render that land uninhabitable anyway when it is under water

 

[Matt1970]

These plants are inherently unsafe. Hundreds of square miles are expected to be destroyed, and trillions will be spent over the next 100 years to clean up all of the nuclear disasters that are projected to occur.

Conservative estimates for the cost to clean up Fukushima is estimated at 200 to 500 billion USD, with hundreds of square km remaining too contaminated to be habitable. Experts say this is just the first in a wave of nuclear disasters that will devastate the earth.

While you are pulling that much shit out of your ass, why don't you pull me out a nice Cadillac.

 

[DCal430]

While you are pulling that much shit out of your ass, why don't you pull me out a nice Cadillac.

Those are estimates from the Government of Japan, the people actually doing the clean up, and world experts. I can post multiple maps showing large areas remaining uninhabitable, as well as projections by the government and expert on the cost.

 

[Patranus]

We really need to get on the ball with more Nuclear Plants in ths country. These 2 plants alone provided 1/10 of CA's electricity needs.

Can't. The "progressives" wont let us.
Which is funny because here in CA they are pushing electric cars.......

But that is their goal. Create artificial crisis to push their agenda.

 

[Matt1970]

Those are estimates from the Government of Japan, the people actually doing the clean up, and world experts. I can post multiple maps showing large areas remaining uninhabitable, as well as projections by the government and expert on the cost.

Please do. Below seems to be the general consensus with the excetion of a private group putting the estimate at nearly 71 to 250 billion dollars.

Fukushima operator warns clean-up 'may cost $125 bn'
TOKYO — The cost of the clean-up and compensation after Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster may double to $125 billion, the plant's operator warned Wednesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...ocId=CNG.9394a22b87c85b55c6e1f77e575fb76d.5e1

You can post your results here so we don't derail this thread.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2324131

 

[Genx87]

Those are estimates from the Government of Japan, the people actually doing the clean up, and world experts. I can post multiple maps showing large areas remaining uninhabitable, as well as projections by the government and expert on the cost.

I am unaware these plants in California had a tidal wave from a massive earthquake hit them causing failure and requiring cleanup into the trillions for hundreds of square miles.

 

[sunzt]

I am unaware these plants in California had a tidal wave from a massive earthquake hit them causing failure and requiring cleanup into the trillions for hundreds of square miles.

But if one were to happen......SEEE YA!

 

[Genx87]

But if one were to happen......SEEE YA!

I live in MN so the undesired contamination wouldnt be my problem. However lots of things can happen. It doesnt mean we should not address our energy needs by building higher polluting less efficient sources of energy.

 

[fskimospy]

I am unaware these plants in California had a tidal wave from a massive earthquake hit them causing failure and requiring cleanup into the trillions for hundreds of square miles.

Just an FYI, San Onofre had a pretty awful record of safety infractions over the years.

 

[sunzt]

I live in MN so the undesired contamination wouldnt be my problem. However lots of things can happen. ....

Yup, like falling bridges...:biggrin::ninja:

 

[Genx87]

Well I have to laugh to see it started off with the contractor putting the reactor in backwards lmao.

But it is closed, permanently now. So unless something catostrphic happens. My point stands. This is no Fukishima.

 

[Jeff7]

At least they're retiring them, rather than trying to squeeze more out of them. We've already got the bad habit of taking something with a specific design life, and trying to run it for twice as long, and then act surprised when it suddenly fails.

It'd be nice to see some good thorium reactors; that tech sounds like everything you could want out of a fission reactor.

And then there's the long wait until the next-gen uranium fission reactor designs are ready.

More inherently-safe designs are of course preferable, to help take some of the human element out of things. "Awww...but maintenance is expensive! Can't we skip it just this once?" Say that too many times, and you get dumped into the reactor.
If the designers said, "Do this stuff, or people die," you damn well better do that stuff.

I also thought that this was amusing - the idea that, since thorium is currently considered a radioactive contaminant of some useful ores, using it as a power source, even if it was simply given to the power industry, would make the useful cheaper, as the mining companies would have to pay to have the thorium "waste" properly separated out and carted off.

 

[waggy]

I agree with jeff. I am glad they are retiring them instead of running them when unsafe.

I also think we need MORE and newer plants.

 

[IGBT]

Id rather build more hydroelectric for water and power but the eco-KOOKS will stop all cost effective power generation. We need to remove the eco-KOOKS from the public policy loop.

 

[K1052]

This plant had problems for a long time. Not upset to finally see it shuttered.

 

[glenn1]

We really need to get on the ball with more Nuclear Plants in ths country. These 2 plants alone provided 1/10 of CA's electricity needs.

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.ph...ost-state-carbon-emissions-by-8-million-tons/

Environmentalists don't care. The only energy sources they embrace either won't meet needs (solar, etc), are energy storage media rather than sources of production (hydrogen, supercapacitors, etc), or don't exist yet. "Conservation" is a magic bullet for them in the present, and for the future they're stuck on a "Manhattan Project" mindset where all they need to do is throw vast sums of money at scientists at one end, and out from the other end will pop out a magic new source of energy.

 

[Brovane]

We really need to get on the ball with more Nuclear Plants in ths country. These 2 plants alone provided 1/10 of CA's electricity needs.]

The thing about these two plants is that Basically SCE(Southern California Edison) screwed up the Turbine Replacement. They didn't take into account with the new turbines at a cost of over 500+ Million that this would result in increased waterflow which would cause issues with the tubes in the heat exchanger unit. They would vibrate and have excessive wear. After this massive screwup I really don't trust SCE to run a nuclear power plant. Somebody that doesn't understand how to properly oversee the design and replacement of new Turbines in the nuclear plant they operate have no business trying to run the plant. With a nuclear plant you need to have 100% confidence in the operators that the operators know what they are doing. SCE over the years has demonstrated time and time again that they really don't know what they are doing. This final fiasco was just the final nail in the coffin IMHO. I think SCE should pay for this entire fiasco but the CA PUC has it's lips locked so hard to SCE read end that I doubt SCE will wind up paying much if at all for their errors.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Its all about priorities. Instead of government in Sacramento investing taxpayer dollars in bringing up to code and expanding the energy grid (e.g. demolishing old nuclear plants and putting out contracts to build new and safer nuclear plants based newer technology and alternative nuclear fuel sources such as thorium) that would enable and help to power more and more electric cars we got a 90-100 billion dollar train to nowhere.

 

[Zxian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY - Short version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI - Slightly longer version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8 - Even longer version

I think we need to redefine our societal definitions of "nuclear".

 

[Brovane]

Its all about priorities. Instead of government in Sacramento investing taxpayer dollars in bringing up to code and expanding the energy grid (e.g. demolishing old nuclear plants and putting out contracts to build new and safer nuclear plants based newer technology and alternative nuclear fuel sources such as thorium) that would enable and help to power more and more electric cars we got a 90-100 billion dollar train to nowhere.

Realistically these costs and actions are not up to the Government in Sacramento. The energy grid is controlled by the Utilities and the CA ISO. Any costs for code updates, expanding the energy grid are controlled by the utilities and the PUC, because rate payers would pay for this. Sacramento doesn't have much to do with this. Also development of new types of nuclear energy are not even remotely controlled by Sacramento.

 

[rpanic]

I think it was built near a fault that was unknown or thought inactive at time of construction. Then retrofitted to handle a 7.0 but fault could be capable of 8.0+ earthquakes. That on top of recent problems it should have been closed and replaced with something else decades ago.

 

[Brovane]

I think it was built near a fault that was unknown or thought inactive at time of construction. Then retrofitted to handle a 7.0 but fault could be capable of 8.0+ earthquakes. That on top of recent problems it should have been closed and replaced with something else decades ago.

I live within 20-miles of this plant and having been following things. In the real world engineers don't design buildings to handle a 7.0 or 8.0 earthquake. The public will be told this as a issue talking point. However buildings are designed to handle a certaing peak ground acceleration in G's. If my memory serves me correct the nearest fault to the site was determined to generate around .35G during the most powerful Earthquake that the fault could generate. This G load was then doubled and then was what the plant was designed to around .7G acceleration. Which is fairly substantial ground movement. Realistically how could a building be designed to survive based on a reichter scale number? A close by 6.0 earthquake could generate more ground movement than a far away 7.0 earthquake. That is why Peak ground acceleration is used for building design.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Good, Fukushima should have been a wake up call to the entire world.