“Climate change favors nuclear energy” is a very poorly reasoned editorial from The Miami Herald.
Climate change does favor nuclear energy, but not at Turkey Point in South Miami Dade County, where one of the nation’s largest energy producers wants to build an additional two facilities.
The issue is coming to a head, now, because FPL is seeking a special permit from Miami-Dade County. FPL is planning to move its request for zoning to the county commission in only a few months.
The Herald editorial board should have been much more circumspect before publishing this editorial.
It veers crazily. And though its points are individually valid, they do not build the case of its conclusion-- “For consumers, the bottom line is whether the monthly electric bill will be lower. The chances of that happening get better with nuclear energy.”
If the point is lower energy costs to consumers, that is what The Miami Herald editorial should have been about.
Everyone wants clean energy and lower cost energy. But until the state’s Public Service Commission and State of Florida provide policies that reward Florida’s utilities for saving energy, like California does, there is no need for new power plants here.
FPL resists this point of view, because it is compensated and profits by increasing the amount of energy it produces. The corporation won't be the advocate for changing this model. That is the work of the governor and the state legislature.
Again, the California model is instructive—and missed by The Miami Herald: when CA utilities started to be compensated for REDUCING production of electricity, the California economy thrived without the addition of a single new power plant for nearly two decades.
Given the points listed in the editorial, the bottom line should have been: that there is a place for nuclear power in addressing climate change when environmental concerns are addressed but not at Turkey Point.
This is not a NIMBY (Not in my backyard) issue, except to the extent we have two national parks in our backyard that we are sworn to protect for future generations.
And FPL should know right now, it will face tremendous opposition in its efforts to fit science to a predetermined outcome.
The Herald writers acknowledge the concerns of environmentalists but fail to elaborate on the single fixed dilemma: the cooling canals at Turkey Point, for the existing nuclear facility, are maxed out.
Here’s what that means: you cannot put any more hot water into the cooling canals. Period.
So FPL is proposing new technology—without providing any specifics—to “air cool” the new reactors, dissipating the heat by evaporating massive amounts of fresh water.
The Miami Herald editorial board does a great disservice to its readers by failing to hold FPL to disclosure on this point.
Its failure is due to the fact that over a long period of time, the Herald editorial board has neglected to track issues related to wastewater and re-use.
Simply, South Florida is already maxed out its withdrawals of fresh water permitted by the State of Florida through the South Florida Water Management District and is under a settlement agreement to provide billions of dollars of new infrastructure—with uncertain and untested scientific results—in order to “make up” for what is consumed and provide for new growth.
What FPL wants to do is to preempt the outcome of billions of dollars of taxpayer infrastructure investment that requires in-depth, complicated scientific evaluation because of real and present threats to public health and our national parks.
To folks at the Chamber and the Herald: that's just the bright fact.
A part of the problem in poor public awareness is that Miami Dade County government, over a long period of time, has hidden the politics of water use behind a very thick veil of special interest lobbying and backroom dealing. Not surprisingly, the closer we have gotten to the point of unsustainable growth, the more obscure government has become.
The Herald never treated this subject as an area worthy of special focus and concern.
As a result, most people—and even the Herald editorial board—have no clue about the timing and sequence and serious health and environmental concerns about the application of massively expensive technologies to South Florida’s water future.
Perhaps Herald executives believe that providing answers is simply a matter of engineering and execution. That is certainly how the big engineering contractors and state agencies are pitching it.
(It is also, by the way, exactly the logic that has allowed our quality of life to incrementally vanish, year by inexorable year. CF. representative democracy in America in the 21st century.)
There are two other points to make, today, about Turkey Point’s terrible location: In the case of evacuating the Florida Keys because of a nuclear power accident at Turkey Point, Florida would be asking Keys residents to rush toward the plant in order to evacuate from it. That is unconscionable.
The second point about the inadvisable geographic location of Turkey Point is this: the nuclear facility is surrounded by so much low-lying land—virtually at sea level—that it is one of the FIRST places in Florida that will bear the visible impact of climate change and global warming.
FPL tosses off this concern by stating it will build its entire facility 20 feet above sea level—some six feet higher than its existing reactor. So, how does it make sense to invest billions in a nuclear reactor that could very well be an island surrounded by water within the expected lifetime of the facility?
The Herald doesn’t serve the public by following the FPL script: “if you wont let us build a new coal-fired power plant in Okeechobee, then we have to build a new nuclear facility at Turkey Point.”
The failed Okeechobee plan for a new coal-fired plant (for which FPL is seeking reimbursement from the state!) was based on the wrong technology in the wrong place.
Because of the water requirements and its location at sea-level on the edge of a national park, the new plan for Turkey Point is also the wrong technology in the wrong place.
Sorry, FPL.
And as to the Herald editorial assertion that environmental concerns “must be reconciled against the fact that Florida’s rapid pace of growth shows few signs of abating,” we are manifestly in a recession based on the collapse of housing markets today.
The inflation of the housing bubble was missed by the Herald editorial board, as well as any accounting of all the costs of growth that are piling on Miami-Dade county taxpayers today.
Before any more poorly reasoned editorials, The Miami Herald needs to track back and re-assess the costs of growth for readers and the general public, don’t you think?
5 comments:
There are a couple of points that your rebuttal leaves out about California.
First, while the state has managed to curb consumption, it's done it at the expense of rising electricity rates -- something that has forced hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs out of the state. While some of those jobs went to neighboring states, a lot of the others went overseas and they're never coming back.
Next, California is now dangerously over-reliant on natural gas-fired generating capacity, making it vulnerable to punishing price volatility in this area. Further, as North American reserves of natural gas are beginning to be depleted, California and other states are going to have to begin relying on imported liquified natural gas (LNG) -- and one potential LNG terminal in Southern California in Long Beach has already been scuttled by local opposition. In the long run that will translate into even higher prices.
This isn't to say that nuclear energy is the only solution available. What is needed in most cases is a balanced portfolio that includes nuclear along with renewables and conservation as much as is practicable. The important thing to remember is that foreclosing any energy option will roughly mean a future where states will have little flexibility when it comes to constraining cost and carbon emissions.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure that electricity costs are only a component of unfair international trade agreements that destroyed American jobs and economic national security.
That said, I don't advocate foreclosing options to a balanced energy portfolio: we are truly in trouble with carbon emissions-- but one cannot justify massive water requirements for new power plants in areas defined by the Everglades watershed.
The utilties themselves have blocked changes to energy policy and pushed consumers and taxpayers into a corner.
We have a long way to go on conservation initiatives and proliferating renewable energy to consumers.
There's a lot of corporate momentum at FPL to move this South Dade nuclear plan forward, but it's going to be a massive waste of time, money, and human capital as well. True, it's a rounding error to FPL profit and loss statement, but it is squandering public good will at a time it can scarcely afford to.
I hope FPL top management can see that.
VERY GOOD POINTS:
There are two other points to make, today, about Turkey Point’s terrible location: In the case of evacuating the Florida Keys because of a nuclear power accident at Turkey Point, Florida would be asking Keys residents to rush toward the plant in order to evacuate from it. That is unconscionable.
The second point about the inadvisable geographic location of Turkey Point is this: the nuclear facility is surrounded by so much low-lying land—virtually at sea level—that it is one of the FIRST places in Florida that will bear the visible impact of climate change and global warming.
With the environment The Herald's is growing a disturbing tendency to re-write press releases and not to account for the external costs or externalities of these projects. Sure nuclear in a cleaner carbon power source, but just what is suggested to do with the toxic waste? Look at the growing number of articles on clean bio-fuels in The Herald. Not a word about the petroleum use to grow the mono-culture crops, the effect of more soy bean production to the rain forests, or the effect of rising commodity prices on the word's poor. Just who is their environmental reporter and are they really keeping up with the field? There are a couple of pro-nuke enviromentalists, mostly nationalists out of UK but the vast research coming out of the movement is opposed.
Where is the research that Nuclear power plans lead to lower utility bills? Most of the last group of plants were over budget, subdized by rising bills to rate payers, or bailed out by the government. None came in on time and on budget, it just did not happen. Just where is this proof coming from that The Herald claims to site for this poorly reasong paen to FPL?
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