Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Earth
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
The Indian Point nuclear power plant sits on the eastern shore of the Hudson River 35 miles north of New York City. On October 15, a three-judge panel hears evidence on whether the plant should operate for another 20 years. At issue is Indian Point’s ability to handle the challenges of aging, as well as its cost estimates for dealing with a meltdown. But what's really at stake is whether nuclear power has a future near the Big Apple.
The two operating reactors on the site produce roughly 17,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year. A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council argues that this electricity could be replaced nearly for free. In fact, the report argues, New York State is already building a new transmission line that will bring in enough power to replace a quarter of the nuclear-generated electricity. But analyses by plant owner Entergy suggest the changeover would come with a hefty bill.
All parties agree that a shutdown would see an increased role for natural gas—meaning more carbon emissions, exacerbating climate change. Whatever the decision, a warmer future is coming—which means more energy demand to cool off summer in the city. Wouldn't it be nice if that power came without the promise of more heat?
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
* Clarification (10/17/12): It is not the NRDC's position that a shutdown of Indian Point nuclear power plant would necessarily require the addition of new natural gas power plants. In fact, their new report lays out a blueprint for how Indian Point's power could instead be replaced by a combination of energy efficiency and renewables at low cost. At the same time, the report does note that, in all likelihood, more natural gas power plants will be built in New York State over the next decade and contribute to the region's electricity supply.
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add CommentAll nuclear plant licenses (new or extentions) are on hold until nuclear waste issues are cleared up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/08/09/2216222/us-freezes-nuclear-power-plant-permits-because-of-waste-issues
There is a point here? Wouldn't it be nice if food just magically appeared and money grew on trees. Without heat there is no energy at all, that is sort of the point of energy. Otherwise we would be at absolute zero kelvin and dead. What is amazing about the warmists is the insistence on blaming CO2, when the heat produced by humans is likely enough to cause global warming but if heat were the problem you warmists could not make any money or obtain any power from just blaming the heat we produce.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet another problem that could be solved with thorium cycle reactors...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother shameful Big Oil infomercial from Sciam and Biello.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTurns out if you tear down the report Biello quotes, replacing the 2 cent a kwh cost of Indian Point electricity with conservation and wind would cost 41 cents a kwh. This is what the Biello and his cadre of renewable religion zeolots call free.
Big Oil loves the current wind/solar/ with inefficient gas backup run inefficiently scam and pays shills like Biello and other half witted Artsies with no science background at Synapse to push it because it sells more gas with the scam than if the utility skipped the wind/solar and just ran on efficient CCGT plant.
Lets see according to the Synapse about a third of the IPoint replacement energy will come from conservation/building efficiency at a cost of 2.5 cents a kwh ie weatherstrip and gap sealing. Does anybody really think that with New York power rates there are a lot of folks left that haven't sealed that leaky window or door? Even the simplest building energy retrofit - replacing old glass with enersave windows costs 20 cents a kwh.
Next Synapse gets another third of the energy from onshore wind at 9 cents a kwh. The new Shepherd's Flat which cost $11B/Gw, or 15 cents a kwh at normal private utility discount rates. To that we need to add 17 cents a kwh for gas backup based on recent data from Ontario, and 8 cents a kwh for 5 times sized wind transmission plant based New England ISO study, giving a real cost of 40 cents a kwh rather than 9 for onshore wind.
Most of the rest of the Synapse replacement energy comes from offshore wind at a claimed 20 cents a kwh compared to the approved Cape Wind tariff of 34 cents a kwh. Adding gas backup and transmission cost as above gives us offshore wind at a real cost of 60 cents a kwh not 20.
Keep in mind that wind doesn't save any GHG's at all because of its gas backup and is massively destructive of forest and farmland. While all logging on the West coast has been virtually halted to protect the spotted owl, this wind plant is virtually wiping out entire populations of raptors - America's national bird.
The renewable zeolot industry is run by ghouls rather than people, warming deniers that embrace junk science to dispute the real sciences claim that the unrecoverable warming precipice killing billions is fast approaching, and carelessly tossing away the lives of millions that die annually from air pollution, as a righteous sacrifice in their pursuit of their foolish dreams of a world powered by soft breezes and warm sunbeams.
Okay, back to the points I thought I'd contribute as starters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPriddseren says 'Wouldn't it be nice if food just magically appeared and money grew on trees.'
Well, if we grew more food from trees then actually that is almost what would happen. Agroforestry and forest gardens grow food in much easier ways than arable farming and need far less fossil fuel energy to create, manage or harvest. Over time if we gradually shifted at least some of our food growing from annuals to perennials we could save lots of fossil fuel from being burned, and there'd be lots of other environmental benefits as well. We need lots of research and development into perennial crops, because they haven't had the huge R&D that annual crops have had over thousands of years.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroforestry.
Priddseren also says
'Without heat there is no energy at all, that is sort of the point of energy... if heat were the problem you warmists could not make any money or obtain any power from just blaming the heat we produce.'
I guess from this comment that you have a dualistic view of the universe which sees things as either A Good Thing or A Bad Thing.
But the universe isn't like that, life isn't like that. There's nothing that makes energy / heat A Good Thing or A Bad Thing.
In living things there are loads of mechanisms which keep us stable at the right temperature, right pH, right blood pressures, and so on. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis
Life isn't about things which are simplistically Good or Bad. Life is more like the porridge / chair / bed in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
What we need is the right amount of energy / heat, whether it's porridge or a climate that is at the temperature which is not too hot, not too cold, but just right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks#Literary_elements
That's what people trying to stop or slow climate change are trying to do.
Back to a more basic point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps one of the causes of our troubles is that we think it's okay that some people live in a 'city that never sleeps'.
Perhaps if we chose to use less energy in the first place we might be able to worry less about nuclear waste, or the downsides of renewables, or indeed climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.
Perhaps we need to listen again to Simon and Garfunkel. 'Slow down, you move too fast'. That way we might make the fossil fuel - and human civilisation - last.