I guess you're talking to me.
First question: Why would an
air pollution zone count? The point of nuclear energy is that it
doesn't produce air pollution. Thus it would be useful to demolish say, the gas plant at Morro Bay and replace it with a nuclear plant. Ditto the plants in Los Angeles. (I have always hated those giant smoke stacks.) Note that the reason for doing this is not for capacity, but for climate change.
Secondly, many of the nuclear plants in Japan have experienced earthquakes. Zero nuclear plants have failed. Thus, I think the stuff about earthquakes is a something that is a little more worked up in the imagination than serious risk analysis would support. There is, in my view, hardly any
rational reason why nuclear energy must be risk free while every other form of energy is exempt from a consideration of risk. It is rather pointing to tell that although dam failures were responsible for the greatest loss of life in energy history, Banqiao, two hundred thousand or more people killed in a single night in 1975, nobody is calling for the closure of California dams because there are earthquakes. One of the largest
California disasters was the collapse of the St. Francis dam (450 killed) and it didn't even
need an earthquake.
Next, nuclear power plants do not need rail facilities since they are fueled once every two years, and only with 100 MT of fuel, an amount that could be carried in one or two trucks.
So this problem of rail applies only to coal. Note that no huge off loading terminals are required either as is the case with natural gas (if the gas can be found).
The transmission lines problem applies to
any power plant, including the coal fired plants importing from Nevada, and including the Hoover dam. So there is no
special reason to consider this a question for "nuclear firsters."
Now, let's talk needs. In the present case, I will only consider base load, since that is what nuclear power does exceptionally well, better than any other form of energy in fact.
Selecting for Jan 15, 2007 as a sort of baseline figure:
http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/ca/index.php I see about 24,000 MWe of base demand.
California has about 2100 MW of geothermal power. (I have no problem with expanding this.) That leaves 22,000 MWe to be addressed.
California has about 37,000 MWe of natural gas capacity, some of which (unconscionably in my view) is used for base load. Many of these are small plants of under 100 MWe, but the 25 largest plants, including plants like Moss Landing, account for 11,000 MWe. If we assume (somewhat arbitrarily) that these large plants are operating as base load plants, they should be replaced by nuclear.
California has about 13,000 MWe of hydroelectric.
This means that about 9,000 MWe are required
if the hydroelectric doesn't fail in droughts.
Nine thousand MWe would represent approximately the nuclear capacity required. If they are 1500 MWe EPR type reactors, that's six reactors.
Here is what I would do:
I would expand the Diablo Canyon site, first off. One or two reactors.
I would rebuild a reactor on the site of the decommissioned San Onofre site. (San Onofre-1). Maybe nuclear facilities could be built on the Fort Ord site as part of a demilitarization program. One reactor, that makes 3.
I would rebuild Rancho Seco, which was closed by public stupidity in the 1980's. The Sacramento area could stand to have a few more reactors, I think
One or two makes 4 or 5.
A new reactor has been proposed in Fresno. That would be a good place, running on recycled city water for cooling. This system could be arranged to
recycle city water in fact, representing a cogeneration opportunity.
Six.
Ditto Bakersfield.
Seven (if needed).
Monterrey. Maybe we could close Fort Ord and build something that contributes better to humanity than the machineries of war.
Eight or nine if needed.
Of course I am not supposed to figure out California's siting problems in order to advance the argument that nuclear power is the cleanest and safest option for energy. I understand that there
is a NIMBY list, of objections but that is not to say that the list is necessarily
rational. As stated, many of the objections on the NIMBY list are without merit in the nuclear case since they don't apply.
The California antinuclear sentiment of the last decades has lead to a de facto assumption that natural gas power is risk free. It is not. There is no such thing as risk free energy, not in California, not in North Dakota, not in Brazil not in Lesotho.
I have no illusions that California
will build the nuclear power plants it
should build to have an ethical energy profile. I am very familiar with the rote objections to nuclear power, but they are
emotional arguments based on very low public comprehension of risk.
I spent almost two decades of my life in California and I know the culture. In fact when I was a young man, back in the 1970's, I could sing the "renewables will save us" song as if I had founded the band. I came to the nuclear side through disillusionment with the "renewables will save us" meme that I first heard there. Here's what the singing of that siren song led to: Vast new natural gas capacity.
I think you have big problems ahead of you out there. You are
lucky that Diablo Canyon did not go the way of Shoreham and you are unlucky that Rancho Seco was shut. I hope you can figure out what to do, but frankly, I'm not optimistic at all that you will.
California, I predict, especially if climate change hits the water/hydroelectric supply is, going to be in bad shape. Compared to what is now
likely to happen there, the
imagined threat of an earthquake someday near some nuclear plant is going to seem like very small potatoes.
I would love it, by the way, if someone took down those ugly smoke stacks at Moss Landing and replaced them with a containment dome. It would then be a pleasure to drive down that stretch of route 1 coming into Watsonville. Hell, I would have no problem whatsoever with them doing the same thing in Redondo Beach and El Segundo, although undoubtedly local heads would explode.
They can leave up all the solar, wind capacity. It's no skin off my back. Hell they can even leave some of the natural gas infrastructure there and run it on days when Californians are feeling particularly suicidal. I'd have no objection to gas peak power being phased out by peak solar, but in fact, solar power is nowhere near meeting an objective to shut
one gas plant on this planet, never mind 50 gas plants in California.
I very much would like to see California
expand its geothermal capacity, particularly in the Salton Sea area. Geothermal is a good form of energy and it
works on scale and on demand.
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