Calif. Reaffirms Moratorium on New Nuclear Power Plants

[bananas]

Source: KABC

Calif. Reaffirms Moratorium on New Nuclear Power Plants
Pro-Nuclear Group Considering Ballot Measure

Apr. 16, 2007 - An Orange County Republican knew it was a long shot, and the Democratic-led Natural Resources committee Monday afternoon confirmed his suspicions, saying "no way" to lifting the moratorium on building new nuclear plants in California. The state has two.

<snip>

California gets about 20 percent of its energy from coal-burning power plants, which contribute to global warming.

A new law prevents the state from renewing those contracts. State leaders want to invest in wind and solar power, which currently provide less than two percent of the state's total energy.

<snip>

The '"no" vote puts a damper on plans by the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group to build a plant in the Central Valley.

<snip>


Read more: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5215883

[doodadem]

1. Whoa!

Glad to hear that little item was kaboshed. We're only about 30 miles east of Fresno and the Valley..........

[EFerrari]

2. Good news in a bad week. n/t

[Odin2005]

3. This will result in more coal plants.

NYMBYist idiots.

[Ecumenist]

5. Um, just because we don't want a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

in one of the most fertile valleys IN THE WORLD, does not make us idiots. These corporate types can't even reliably take care of producing safe foodstuffs AND would say NOTHING about the danger , if they could get away with it. I don't want coal EITHER and before you get even more self righteous, I am building a home in the far northern part of the valley that will be COMPLETELY off the grid- Solar and Wind powered, thank you very much.

[Sirveri]

9. I'm from CA, and I work nuclear.

Nuclear would be a boon for CA, we need the energy resources. Nuclear provides them in a clean, safe, reliable manner. With new fourth gen reactors being developed like pebble bed systems the threat of fission product releases is near impossible, especially with our already impressive record on containment systems.

[Odin2005]

11. Watch out, the anti-nuclear nuts will go after you for calling nuclear "clean."

Their ability to tolerate necessary risks is pathetically low.

[Alexander]

17. Because it's not clean? It produces waste, and does Chernobyl ring a bell?

Yeah, like we'd want this administration overseeing plant safety when they don't even properly regulate things like beef and cat food.

:eyes:

BTW - calling someone "nuts" because they disagree with you is a great way to show others that you can't handle mature debate.

[Sirveri]

30. Coal produces waste as well.

Coal produces some really nasty carcinogenic waste. I won't lie and say nuclear doesn't produce waste, however at the same time if we were to discharge from our purification system thru the discharge filter to the environment, you wouldn't notice. I would actually drink that discharge, it's water that MIGHT have some radioactivity in it. That's what most people misunderstand about nuclear power, they think it's all going to kill you if you sit next to it for an hour. Or that you'll get cancer if there is a plant within a mile of you. And that's just not the way it works.

Also Chernobyl was a 1st generation fast breeder reactor which aside from power generation was used to make nuclear weapons materials. So that meant it was built for fast refuel at power which signifigantly lowered their containment capabilities. That and they had some other design flaws that made it inherantly unstable (water boiling caused reactor power to INCREASE, which is the opposite of most modern reactors). The and their supervisory elements all came from coal bruning plants, they were running testing, they failed to account for a Xenon transient, and they disabled the computer controls which maintained their neutron flux profiles, oh and this test was being run by all their junior personel without supervision from senior experienced operators.

Yeah, no shit they f'd up and popped the top.

[Sirveri]

38. The Executive does not oversee nuke plants. That's the Legislative.

They have Senate hearings on it. They bring in a Navy Admiral, he says everything is good, maybe states what happened from a few incident reports and leaves. Then the civilian guy comes in and spends about a week with charts and papers and bargraphs.

[Ecumenist]

13. With all due respect...

You may work in the nuclear industry and may believe with all your heart that this would be safe but I was in university when Chernobyl occurred (married an Eastern European with family in the area badly effected by that radioactive plume from those burning graphite cores), I was a young girl during Three Mile Island AND during the Karen Silkwood incident-BTW, my mother's family live in Oklahoma and did during that time- and I live in Sacramento County. The last statement is relevant because we USED TO HAVE A NUCLEAR REACTOR HERE--RANCHO SECO-- and it was constantly having leaks, releases of radioactive gasses, you name it. I knew people that worked at that plant, one of them being a nuclear engineer and the other being a maintenance tech. Both of these folks QUIT because of the slack running of that plant. It was closed and DECOMMISSIONED in the late eighties/ early nineties because there were just two many "incidents" and "sheltering in place" for people in Galt, Herald and Wilton in the south county to keep that joint open.

I also have family and friends in the Hanford Washington area and if you work in the industry, you know the disaster that that is. Contaminated groundwater, with a plume headed toward the Columbia River watershed; radioactive dust that has caused myriad cancers, cardiac problems, birth defects, etc.

No, NO, NO!!!! Near perfect isn't good enough, esepcially when it's been shown over and over again that money trumps doing what is necessary to keep things safe and clean and once there is contamination, there is no rehabilitation. There isn't enough money in the world to justify nuclear ANYWHERE, let alone California. We have an abundance of sun and in most of the coastal areas, foothill and mountainous area, there is ALOT of year around wind. They are both clean and free to exploit. I am aware that alot of people don't have to money to change over, although many of them used equity in their homes to buy useless things but in the end, that's neither here nor there.

I am building a home in an area with alot of sun AND high wind speeds most of the time. I am taking advantage of this and will not be adding to either the carbon load, the petro industry OR the destruction of my planet and biosphere. I will also have the added advantages of not having utility bills and tax benefits directly related to the solar array and wind power systems.

I don't believe in the technology as it exists at this point in time and I walk my talk. No Nuclear and I believe that that money would be better spent installing solar arrays to take advantage of the sun, wind where there is an abundance and water power where it can be utilised. They don't pollute and won't kill every living thing in a major failure of the plants.

[Sirveri]

31. You are aware of the mass ammounts of heavy metal in Solar right?

Gallium Arsenide and Selenium if I remember correctly. Nasty carcinogenic junk used to make solar panels. That and we're still not sure if the energy used to create those panels will be less than what they make over the design lifetime of the power unit.

As for Hanford and Chernobyl; You're comparing 1st Gen reactor plants made in the 50's and 60's to modern 3rd and 4th gen designs and not taking into account the past 40 years of operational exerpience we've learned.

As for TMI; the average dose was maybe 5mrem, considering you get more from flying across the country or getting an X-ray that's not bad. Especially considering the colossal screw ups that were running the plant. I mean, you put a bunch of idiotic mouth breather retards in charge of the plant and they still can't break it to the point to actually kill anyone. Not the case with SL-1 (USA) or Chernobyl (USSR). It really just goes to show how far we've come in the industry here in the United States. Modern Pebble beds are even safer, you would have trouble breaking them even if you purposefully tried.

As for Shelter in place, I used to live next to two refineries. I've also had to deal with it. And refineries tend to get a lot less fear and thus their power to ruin your life is disrespected.

And finally, there is a big push for coal running RIGHT NOW. I'd much rather push for nuclear than for coal, even with current modern smoke scrubbers. Someone in big business is going to win this fight, and it won't be wind/solar/geotherm, they just don't make enough money.

[spoony]

8. Bingo.

This is another in a long tradition of fear-based decisions that has ultimately cost tens of thousands of lives and tonnes of pollution from filthy coal plants.

[Ecumenist]

4. HALLELUYAH!!!

We Westcoasters still have a little bit of common sense.

[truthisfreedom]

6. Minnesota has strict laws in place forcing Big Energy to build wind and solar fields, no coal plants

Every state should be doing this. We could power our entire nation with wind, and anyone who says we couldn't hasn't looked at the facts. Wind generators are spectacular and awe-inspiring. They are the answer to our future energy needs.

[Ecumenist]

14. Exactly, Truth!!!!

This is what my husbandand I are doing. We are doing wind and solar AND because we live in an area of great water, we are drilling a well AND installing a greywater system. Like I said in post # , I walk my talk.

[pberq]

7. Yes! California - keep up the pressure.

Nuclear is not the answer - wind and solar are.

[Sirveri]

10. Sad to see nuclear still with a bad rap after 30 years.

I guess CA will continue to build new nat gas burners and when the price of nat gas spirals out of control and hits consumers we'll see how local industry feels about the prices.

[Odin2005]

12. It's because we have become a society of selfish NIMBYists.

And ideologues with axes to grind constantly spew anti-nuclear propaganda. I got sick of "Chernobyl killed 100,000 people" BS spewed by Greenpeace during the Chernobyl anniversary last April.

[Ecumenist]

15. Odin, I find it VERY interesting that you spout these comments

and you were BORN in 1986, the SAME YEAR IT HAPPENED. You don't live here in California and yet, you set yourself up to be such an expert. As it applies to Chernobyl, how many people who were children or unborn have you encountered who have had myriad cancers,(usually Leukaemias and other bone marrow related disorders), DIRECTLY related to Chernobyl? How many children with microcephaly, horrible brain defects, fused limbs, syndactly, you name it, who were in utero at the time of the incident, have you met or had interaction with? I have seen it and experienced it directly as a result of my husband's family being from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Moldavia, etc. who have had unbelievable sorrows because of the legacy of that poisonous plume. This is NOT propaganda, Odin, it is real, horrific and in hundreds of thousands of cases, walking around and doing thir best to keep breathing. ALOT of these folks are EXACTLY your age and for you to say what you have regarding the horror of Chernobyl is just beyond belief.

It doesn't mean anything to most people UNLESS and UNTIL it touches their lives directly. It ain't a joke and it's not fun or a matter of furthering some sick agenda for the people who have to live that life.

I know people who had uncles and grandfathers who were nuclear vets from the cold war era, you know, the ones who were ordered to observe the above ground nuclear tests, in Nevada, in the myriad tests done in the south Pacific, (Bikini Atoll,anyone?)? Do you know how many of these men and more than a few women suffered and died of CRAZY illnesses DIRECTLY attributable to their exposure, only to find out that they were denied any help from the same government who sent them into what they knew was a hazardous theatre?

When I say horrific illnesses, that's exactly what I mean. Hell, the legacy of the cold war in Navajo Land is that all that mining of Uranium and the tailings, not to mention the contamination of groundwater, left have resulted in a level of deadly cancers, unnamed and progressively deteriorative syndromes that are killing young people,sometimes whole families of siblings are wiped out. The connection with Uranium comes from the fact that their mothers drank from what was later determined to be water fouled by Uranium and it's isotopes. Navajos, Hopis and Zunis are historically sheep herders and often spend alot of time in the back of beyond drinking groundwater and having intense exposure to the radioactive dusts. BTW, this is a matter of history and fact, again, NOT PROPAGANDA!!

I have seen it and experienced the legacy of nuclear contamination through my own family and those I know and care for. It's not a matter of being an idealogue or grinding any bloody axes. Once people are exposed and the land contaminated, THERE IS NO WAY TO CLEAN IT UP AND REPAIR THE CHROMOSOMAL DAMAGE, ODIN. Wake up and learn a few things. This is a real issue and unfortunately REAL LIFE for all too many people in the world.

[TheWraith]

16. So the only way to be an expert in nuclear power is to have been alive at the time of an accident?

Well then, I was alive in 1986, so I guess I'm an expert then. But what really gives me insight is having done the research and and knowing the facts. The base-line reality is that unless we want to keep running coal plants for at least another 50 years, we need a high-energy technology right now. Nuclear can do that, solar can't, an wind is marginal at best.

As regards Chernobyl, it's an inaccurate comparison at best. At worst, it's a total strawman. The VIL reactor #4 had a deeply flawed design, basically no real containment structure, and the operators had deliberately gone around the safety systems to conduct a test. Yet, it's held up constantly as if it's the representative of all nuclear power worldwide, despite the 435 other reactors that operate safely every single day. And yes, while radiation is dangerous, its danger has been grossly exaggerated by Greenpeace types and other anti-nuclear advocates playing fast and extremely loose with the facts. I'm not impugning what you describe, but a good example is the often-cited Greenpeace claim that the accident at Chernobyl killed 100,000 people, whereas actual experts say that that number is ten to twenty times too high.

More to the point, do you know how many people in the US die every year from air pollution, much of it produced by fossil fuel and coal plants? Twenty five thousand, three to five times the number of credibly estimated fatalities produced by Chernobyl, and we suffer it EVERY YEAR. And if it's just radiation you're afraid of, you should know that all our coal plants release more tons of radioactive material directly into the air in a year than our nuclear plants sequester in deep storage in the same period.

So no, nuclear power isn't completely safe. Nothing is. But your chances are a hell of a lot better of dying in a car crash, or being killed by smog, then they are of dying from a nuclear power plant, but I do't see anyone giving up cars. Given a choice between living near a coal plant and living near a nuclear plant, I know which one I would choose in a heartbeat.

[Ecumenist]

18. Don't be obtuse...

Of course, you do't have to have been here to be an expert, which by your comments, you show you aren't. What experts are you speaking of when you talk about the folks who say that the 100K death toll is too high? The fact that many people die tof Air pollution hasn't got a rat's ass to do with the fact that nuclear contamination. The BIG DIFFERENCE between particulate pollution and radioactive contamination is that smog can be scrubbed from the air, emission requirements can be changed, as well as efficiency guideline and alternative fuels can, do and WILL make a difference. When the hell has anyone EVER CLEANED the environment of nuclear contamination? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!

You spout talking points,(and that's exactly what it reads like), that state that air pollution and and automobiles cause more deaths. Using you logic and your way of using UNREALSTIC sets of odds to try to justify nuclear energy by using the metaphor of auto accidents is the same as saying that one could sit on a bomb and have a better chance of dying from a bolt of lightning. One has nothing to do with the other.

Odin, the thing is that if one were to die in an automobile crash, it doesn't result in everwindening cycles poisoning which has half lives measured in units LONGER THAN HUMAN CIVILISATION making the land uninhabitable for thousands, sometimes, BILLIONS of year, friend. The responders to a car accident don't worry about bone marrow damage or an atomic legacy that haunts their sleep with worries of one's descendants having shortened lives and/or congenital defects due to degradation to DNA damage..otherwise known as mutations but in this case DEALY ONES. You speak so cavalierly of living next to a nuclear plant as it's safer that a coal burning plant. When I read or hear someone say something so crazy, I shake my head and wonder what dimension they live in. BTW, I don't want coal burning plants either; they not only add carbon to the atmosphere but prodigious amounts of sulfur which results in acid rain...oh that's right, you weren't born when this was a big problem with huge swaths of forests dying because of rain whose pH was so low that it was just this side of sulfuric acid as well as nitric acid.

In your comments about solar, wind and water as well as biofuels show your ignorance. There are whole villages in the "3rd world" that run on NOTHING BUT SOLAR. There are wind farms that produce power enough power to fuel towns, cities and factories etc in the Netherlands, Germany, France etc.

Solar arrays are used ALOT in the west in many isolated areas and these places have all the energy necessary to do everything they need to do and have enough left over to seel back to the grid. Learn a little, Odin. Know what you're talking about before you get up on a soapbox and spout nonsense.

[Sirveri]

32. I have slept within 50 feet of a nuclear reactor.

They aren't dangerous. Contamination particles to worry about:
Iodine 131; half life of apx 8 days, main problem is that it accumulates in the thyroid and has high energy decay particles which cause cancer. Solution, take Iodine tablets to saturate your thyroid prior to exposure.
Strontium 90; The really dangerous one, half life of apx 28 years, high energy discharge particles, used in place of calcium in bones causing bone marrow cancers. Solution, don't dump fission products into the environment, quarenteen affected areas from providing lifetock. Estimated time until removed from environment by decay: 140 years.
Cesium 135; Half life of 35 years, emits high energy gammas upon decay, retained inside the body for up to 5 years. Solution, see Sr90. Estimated time until removed from environment by decay: 175 years.

It sucks to live in affected areas of Ukraine. It REALLY sucks that they dumped water on the core and caused mass ammounts of particulates to aerosol and get sucked up in the resulting steam plume. We do not have the same deficiencies in knowledge or design however.

on edit: Oh, and you can scrub particulates from the air, I do it every day when I take airborne surveys. A simple air filter will get them all. But since the steam plumes are from water that isn't even from the reactor plant or the secondary plant, there isn't anything in it to remove.

[Odin2005]

20. Exactly.

The poster NNadir, who is a nuclear engineer, is always pointing out how the anti-nuclear nuts rant on about nuclear waste yet forget the pollutants and CO2 waste released by nuke plants. Why? because people can't see CO2.

The Anti-nuclear people seem to resort to emotion-laden pontification (*cough" Ecumenist *cough*) because the facts aren't on their side.

[bananas]

21. NNadir is not a nuclear engineer, he's a self-taught hobbyist with no formal training.

"As it happens, I am a nuclear autodidact. Almost everything I know about nuclear energy, I taught myself. I pretty much did the whole thing in isolation. No one ever gave me a shred of formal training in nuclear engineering. It all started when the Chernobyl reactor blew up, putting my worst fear out on the table for all the world to see."
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:nZDm5LwQtoQJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/29/11518/4012+nnadir+autodidact&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

That's why there are serious gaps in his knowledge,
for example this subthread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x49658#49705

[Ecumenist]

27. Thank you, Bananas..

It never fails to amaze me that people so easily toss around the idea of further endangering our planet when they know next to nothing or refuse to see the facts about any failure of a nuclear plant. I live in Sacamento county and there WAS a nuclear plant, Rancho Seco, that was decommissioned AFTER INNUMERABLE ACCIDENTAL RELEASES AND "OOPSIES". People got tired of having to shelter in place and hearing that alarm go off, especially after the Chernobyl incident.

When you can't trust the energy industry to be honest about viable alternatives, gouging the public with RIDICULOUSLY high fuel prices, lying about additives causing groundwater contamination...Hell, we're in a corporate war because of this industry's greed but now we are supposed to trust this same entity to maintain plants which can and will spew poison if AND WHEN they fail or have a serious accident?


You cannot clean the environment or the body of these substances and cannot repair the DNA damage. No, Non, Nyet,Nem, nope.

[jpak]

29. and let's not forget the invention of the DYI molten salt breeder reactor

which will make *some people* "fabulously rich"...

:evilgrin:

[Sirveri]

33. -Delete- Didn't read subthread

That would have helped.

[hunter]

36. As opposed to what?

bananas?

[Ecumenist]

26. a 21 year old CHILD who knows VERY little

needs to learn how to stop denigrating people who've LIVED and backed up their points with not just experience but FACTS. You talk about emotional points then turn around and make asinine comments about nebulous "experts", who BTW, you don't seem to be able to name and demonstrate a complete ignorance wind solar and water generated power. Grow up, Odin. When you're wrong...Guess what? YOU'RE WRONG.

Your comments VERY clearly demonstrate your level of maturity or lack thereof.

[hunter]

37. Hah, hah, so do yours, Ecumenist.

:hi:

[SayWhatYo]

24. Here's my problem with most of this...

It seems as if no matter what kind of power source it is, there will be a large group of people against it. Back when I was in high school there was a huge debate going on about hydro dams on the Oregon rivers because it killed fish(although many of these same protestors were more than willing to cut off water to whole valley of farms in an effort to save more fish) Then there are those who protest solar & wind power because it either takes up too much land or it kills birds.... I'm not sure if there any protests against geo-thermal stuff, but bases on what I've seen so far, I'm sure there are.

Anyways, I don't know enough about nuclear power to have a relevant opinion on it, so I'm not going to touch that.

[hogwyld]

19. This won't last long...

ONce natural gas prices start to skyrocket, and everyone's utility bill start heading north of 200 per month, they'll be itching for nukular. Sure wind and solar are nice, but not near efficient enough to supply Cali's energy needs. Unless they want to go back to candlelight.

[Le Taz Hot]

23. You underestimate Californians.

We've managed to prohibit anymore nuke plants AND we've staved off the oil robber barons' lust to drill in our extremely environmentally sensitive and BEAUTIFUL Central Coast for years.

Even "Ahnold" is on board with solar and wind power.

[hogwyld]

25. I don't dispute those current facts

What I'm talking about is what is going to happen when solar and wind cannot supply enough electricity to meet the demands of industry, and with global warming, the high demand of electricity in the summer months. Sure they'll have a beautiful beach to look at while they are sweltering in the heat and unemployed.

[NickB79]

34. California simply built natural gas turbines instead of coal or nuke plants

They've installed thousands of megawatts of natural gas power plants in the past decade. While cleaner than coal, they still release millions of tons of CO2 over their lifetimes, not to mention rely on a fuel that is currently peaking and will begin to skyrocket in price over the next few years.

Solar and wind were completely dwarfed by the boom of natural gas in the past decade. I pray that more wind power will come online, but the amounts needed are mind-boggling.

[Le Taz Hot]

22. Yessss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was SOOOO pissed at Autry (our Fresno mayor) for going along with this bullshit. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle for the nuke industry, I just didn't think the slap down would be this quick.

[RL3AO]

28. Thats too bad

but if thats on the California people feel, so be it. Since I live about 4 miles from a nuclear plant, I do support the building of nuclear plants, but also wind and solar.

[Pavulon]

35. Good for me

tech companies close shop and move to where I am because it is 10 times less to run.

Stupid move.