Florida Power and Light is Finally Building a Solar Power Plant. By Geniusofdespair

Before you get TOO happy, and you should be happy, think about the power production of this solar plant. Turkey Point's twin reactors now produce enough power for 450,000 homes. The FPL Group's 150-kilowatt solar array in Sarasota, now close to completiion, will produce 500 megawatts of solar energy which translates to power for about 75,000 homes and business, (they say at least during the day).

Why so little power? Maybe because solar should not be centralized. It should be more local because you lose power the further it has to be transported. Ultimately, panels on the roof is the best way to get solar benefits. The $5.7 billion they were going to use for the Glades coal power plant could be used to install and lease panels to people for their rooftops. A persons power consumption beyond the solar capacity could be metered according to what they use. Did you know that hot water heating is about 9 percent of the total state energy consumption? If we could use solar just to heat our water, look at how ahead of the game we would be?

Why is no one pushing for localized solar? Because no one makes the big bucks off of it.

Transmission lines are a tremendous power loser. There is a loss you incur moving energy across lines to power stations and then on to people. Florida Power and Light should follow a better plan, trying to get rid of transmission losses. For instance, having 4 reactors in one place is a waste of energy because of transmission losses. I wonder if anyone calculated the losses of energy to transmit power from way South in Miami Dade all the way West and on to Broward?

On another note that should reassure you, this is what FP&L had to say in a 2002 GEIS document (I believe when they were relicensing their nuke plant):

During 2000, Turkey Point Units 3 and 4 did not release any strontium-90 in the gaseous effluents. Liquid effluents containing radioactive materials, including strontium-90 and strontium-89 were released into the closed system cooling canals. The only time that strontium was released in the liquid effluents was during the second quarter: 0.12 MBq (3.2 E-06 Ci) of strontium-90 and 0.37 MBq (10 E-06 Ci) of strontium-89 (FPL 2001). For the second quarter of 2000, the total radioactive effluents were about 150 times below NRC regulatory limits (6.63 E-03 percent of applicable limits). The quantities of materials released in all effluents during 2000 are comparable to the quantities released in the past 5 years and the expected quantities in years to come, including the license renewal period.

FPL performs an assessment of radiation dose to the general public from radioactive effluents, assuming a visitor was at the child development center/fitness center for 10 hours a day, 5 days each week, for 50 weeks of the year, inhaling the gaseous effluents from both Turkey Point Units 3 and 4 (FPL 2000b). For 1999, the total body dose to an adult from inhalation was
estimated to be 1.1 E-8 mSv (1.1 E-6 mrem) or 2.2E-7 percent of the annual limit of 5 mSv (500 mrem). For dose due to liquid effluents, FPL assumes a teenager stands on the bank of the cooling canal for 67 days per year and is exposed to direct radiation from the cooling canal sediments, which have deposits of radioactive materials from the effluent releases from both
Turkey Point Units 3 and 4. For 1999, the estimate of dose to a teenager from this shoreline deposition was 5.9 E-6 mSv (5.9 E-4 mrem) or 0.04 percent of the annual limit of 0.03 mSv (3 mrem). Evaluation of doses from gaseous effluent releases from the two units for the same year resulted in an annual dose due to noble gases of 8.6 E-8 mGy (8.6 E-6 mrad) for gamma
radiation and 2.9 E-7 mGy (2.9 E-5 mrad) from beta air dose. These are 8.6 E-5 percent and 1.4 E-4 percent, respectively, of the annual limit (see Section 2.1.4) (FPL 2000b). These doses, which are representative of the doses from the past 5 years, are provided to demonstrate that the impact to the environment from radioactive releases from Turkey Point is small.(a)