Caught up in the hoopla of the exciting beauty contest being conducted on this blog, I almost missed an important story. And, it appears the Miami Herald columnist who wrote PSC: Expand ‘Clean Energy’ missed a big part of it too!
Now readers, you must all learn: The online version of an article is NOT the same as the paper version. I don’t know why. Anyway, the paper version was a longer article and, as usual the OTHER SIDE of this important issue is given inadequate coverage:
Most environmentalists have been adamantly opposed to expanding the definition to include nuclear power.
That’s it Mister Reporter? That is all you could muster in both the online and paper version of the article? Why are they opposed? What did they say? Which environmentalists? Are we talking about the "environmental" lawyers at Greenberg Trauig? "Environmentalists" is a pretty broad term.
We readers all know Florida Power and Light are trying desperately to expand the definition of CLEAN ENERGY and do away with the current words of RENEWABLE ENERGY so that nuclear and clean coal (oxymoron) can be somehow included in Crist’s statement. All of this word wrangling is because Governor Crist has set a goal, that 20% of all electrical power should come from “renewable energy.” So before your eyes that statement is going to change, it will be massaged by FP&L lobbyists/brass to include UNRENWABLE energy and the reporter is not quoting any environmentalists with their side of the story of why this betrayal of the public trust should not happen. The Herald did quote FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana to let him/her get their side very clear (without a rebuttal of course).
By the way, in another article I saw, pay attention all you high school graduates (yes high school): FPL provides paid training of 18 months, plus ongoing paid training to become a Nuclear Power Plant Operator. You can make about $60,000 to $85,000 a year. Have no fear, according to the article, reactor operators are projected to grow by 11% through 2016, providing 400 new jobs!
Thanks, in part, to Miami Herald's one sided reporting, I expect the growth will be true.
Let's see what the Palm Beach Post did with the story:
State's green-energy future down to one choice: Renewable or clean
By CHRISTINE STAPLETON - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer - December 22, 2008
Renewable energy regulations
What is a Renewable Portfolio Standard?
These are regulations that require Florida's power companies to
generate a set amount of retail energy from renewable energy sources
by a specific date.
What is renewable energy?
According to Florida law, it is a fuel from biomass, geothermal, solar
or wind energy and power from ocean tides and currents, hydroelectric
and agricultural products.
Why is Florida creating a Renewable Portfolio Standard now?
In 2007, Gov. Charlie Crist signed an executive order directing the
Public Service Commission to develop a Renewable Portfolio Standard by
2009. The standard will set a deadline for utilities to produce at
least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources, with
strong emphasis on solar and wind.
The future of green energy in Florida and the fate of your electric
bill rest in the state's choice between two words: renewable or clean.
Five months of public hearings ended this month, and Florida's utility
regulators now must decide whether the state should have "renewable"
energy rules or "clean" energy rules. The seemingly insignificant
choice of an adjective is actually a billion-dollar decision that will
put nuclear power in its place in Florida's energy future.
Because nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases, Florida Power &
Light - the state's largest utility and operator of nuclear plants in
St. Lucie County and Turkey Point near Florida City - says nuclear is
green. The governor agrees. FPL has proposed changing the name and
eligible fuel sources allowed in the state's green energy rules from
"renewable" to "clean."
"To be clear, we have advocated the inclusion of new nuclear power as
part of a Clean Energy Portfolio Standard, and have not argued that
nuclear power is a renewable source of energy," FPL spokesman Mayco
Villafana wrote in an e-mail response to questions from The Palm Beach
Post.
The controversial rules, called a Renewable Portfolio Standard, will
require power companies to meet deadlines for generating a set amount
of energy from renewable or clean energy sources. Proposals range from
20 percent of retail sales from renewable by 2020, to 2030 or 2041.
Changing from renewable to clean would allow FPL to count energy from
its new nuclear power plants toward its obligation to generate green
energy. Today, 19 percent of the power FPL generates in Florida comes
from nuclear power. None comes from green sources, such as solar,
wind, biofuels or geothermal.
However, a commission created to advise the legislature and a
consultant for the regulators say Florida needs a Renewable Portfolio
Standard and that nuclear power is not renewable.
"We did not think, as a body, that nuclear was a true renewable in a
traditional sense, something that continually replenishes itself,"
said Tommy Boroughs, a lawyer and chair of the Florida Energy
Commission. In its 2007 report to the legislature, the commission
specifically excluded nuclear in its definition of renewable sources
of energy.
Why does it matter? Because if lawmakers decide that nuclear power is
not clean or renewable, FPL will have to purchase or build facilities
to generate green energy to comply with the looming edict. That would
mean higher electric bills.
"Excluding new nuclear power will require the addition of other clean
energy projects, such as wind and solar facilities, which will result
in higher bills for customers," Villafana wrote.
The Public Service Commission has until Feb. 1 to send its
recommendations to the legislature.
That will not end the debate. All players - environmentalists,
renewable power developers and utilities - vow to lobby lawmakers on
the nuclear issue.
"The fight really begins in the legislature," said Michael Dobson,
president and CEO of the Florida Renewable Energy Producers
Association. "FPL has relationships and our members have relationships
there. The legislature is going to be a donnybrook."
Incoming Senate President Jeff Atwater, a member of the Governor's
Action Team on Energy and Climate Change, declined to take a position
last week. Gov. Charlie Crist toured a nuclear power plant in France
last summer with FPL President Armando Olivera.
Crist turned down a hefty campaign contribution from FPL in 2006
because of the company's support for his opponent in the GOP primary.
But the governor relied heavily on FPL's financial support to pass a
property tax cut amendment this year.
Last week, he said he supports including nuclear in either a clean or
renewable energy plan.
"We have to defer to the scientists on that point," Crist said. "But
there are great indications about renewability."
At his first climate change conference in 2007, Crist ordered utility
regulators to set a standard for utilities to achieve 20 percent of
electricity sales from renewable fuels by 2020.
Twenty-six other states have created similar renewable energy regulations.
Only Ohio allows some nuclear power to be counted toward renewable energy goals.
For now, everyone is waiting until Dec. 29, when the PSC delivers its
final report to the commission.
"At the end of the day we all know, frankly, that the legislature
doesn't have to accept any of the recommendations," Dobson said. "It's
going to be very political."
26 comments:
The Herald as usual is doing its spin of the facts. Look up renewable in the dictionary. Nuclear does not fit the definition. Clean coal is a joke. Energy companies have decided to use marketing in their approach, to say the words clean coal over and over in the hope that it will be believed. Sun, wind, plants, tidal, geothermal and a few others meet the definition of renewable.
The Palm Beach Post article is easier to understand and it does give the other side -- at least a little bit. I did't know what "Donnybrook" meant so I didn't get the quote. I looked it up.
On Sept. 16, 2008 there was an item that flew through a first read at the County Commission - a Text Amendment filed by Bercow on behalf of FPL. It's asking to revise Agriculture language. FPL want to revise the CDMP text for the Ag area, East and South of Homestead Air Base to allow water management projects "subject to certain specific critera".
This say's it all: "the aggregate from the water management project shall not be sold and shall only be used as fill for the water management project, or for public infrastructure projects by the County.......
It's truly a disgusting read. This will go to CC 15 I think than to the PAB sometime in March/April.
Yep, FPL's working hard to keep us "green" by destroying our ag land and do some rock mining (maybe they can hook up with the Parkland/Krome Gold party, or they already have).
The usual suspects on the PAB will rubber stamp this BS and probably the Ken Forbes owned CC15 too. Need I say what the Commission will do?
Genius, I am curious. Are you willing to have your rates double to meet the Governor's goals? And before you answer that, let me just give you some context. Even assuming renewable sources were used to address incremental demand growth over the years (which is physically impossible, btw), the costs of operating existing plants still remains. Assuming new renewable generation could serve to displace existing non-renewable generation (again, a physical impossibility) the obligation of writing down those existing (and now non-producing) plants still remains. The cost of the fuel necessary to run the existing non-renewable plants generally increase over time. As soon as increased use of renewable plants using biomass increases enough to stress the supply of biomass, it too will join the carbon-based fuels on the increasing slope. The sooner the goal, no matter what it is, is to be met, the greater the economic impact (rate shock) in the near-term. Down economies exacerbate rate shock.
There is no doubt that aggressive carbon reduction goals, met through strict use of renewable sources is the most desirable way to achieve pure environmental goals. The sad reality is that pure environmental goals, noble and absolutely necessary as they may be, run counter to pure economic goals, from the simple standpoint of whether current consumer buying power can absorb increases at the rate necessary to accomodate the pure environmental goal. The key is how to move forward toward the environmental goal while stressing the economic contraint to its breaking point and not further. Not an easy task.
To call nuclear energy renewable would be an insult, of course. To call it "clean" is accurate from an emissions standpoint. This speaks directly to the overall goal of carbon emissions reduction. The benefits of nuclear energy can still be challenged on the basis of safety issues, and a legitimate discussion can be had. To challenge nuclear energy as not providing a leg up on attaining carbon-reduction goals is disingenuous. And when put against the backdrop of economic stressors and constraints, an attempt to have the argument both ways makes for drastic reductions in credibility emissions.
So, "environmentalists" have painted themselves into a bit of a corner. They must choose between the mere possibility of nuclear risk, and the purported hard science of global warming. It used to be that when the enviromental lobby was a voice without an audience, they, as a general class, had the luxury of lobbing message bombs indiscriminately without heed for any heirarchy of greater goods and acceptable compromises. They could afford to stand purely on principle, without regard for their own adjacent inconsistent principle. Now in the spotlight, the movement is treated to active, even loving, scrutiny. And the inconsistencies must be reconciled.
So, what to do first? Save the polar caps from certain melting - and all that comes with it- or rid the planet of the evils of fission?
Seems to me everyone needs a shot of reality. No chaser.
Heating water into steam (nukes) doesn't seem like the way, it puts heat in the atmosphere. Aren't we trying to do the opposite?
Nonee Moose, I would gladly double my electric bill if it would help even triple it. Yes I am financially crunched right now but I think this is too important.
Also, this is like the car industry. They had no incentive to build fuel efficient cars so they didn't. We have no incentive to develop good energy sources so we don't. The nuclear road is enormously expensive, dangerous and uses up one mega amount of water, which we can't afford to give up. Even sea water - the sea is becoming so alkaline (or whatever) the coral reefs are dying off. We are at a turning point for the planet and I am not a scientist, I am just a regular Joe, and this --nukes -- doesn't seem the answer to me. I hope you go back and look at my Thanksgiving post about the liquidators.
Also, if some people could get off the grid somewhat with solar panels, that would take the pressure off. We need solar panels widespread. Yes, it wouldn't be the solution but it might be able to hold us till we ingenious Americans find a better more permanent source of energy. Remember: Nonee, No incentives, no answers eg. American cars.
Dear Nonee Moose: Why won't FPL support a new utility compensation regime in Florida, that rewards FPL for reducing energy demand instead of increasing it?
Hey Nonee: How about some Bagel power? Let's get those vats cranking out some electricity with those bagels.
HEY PUT THAT POST BACK I LIKED IT...
Folks who say that solar and wind "will not be enough" have it backwards -- there is a trickle of oil and a small pile of uranium...even coal (which we MUST stop burning in any case) is small when compared to the amount of energy that comes to Earth every single day from that nuclear source safely positioned 93 million miles away -- SOL -- our Sun!
In ONE HOUR Earth gets as much power as human beings currently generate from ALL other sources in a whole year! SOLAR IS THE BIG SOURCE! The sun makes the wind...which IS also huge by comparison to fuels we dig up. There is more wind energy just in the center of North America than the energy reserves of ALL OF OPEC!!!
This is GREAT NEWS -- we CAN DO IT -- we can get off carbon fuels and we don't need nukes to get there!
-- Mary Olson, NIRS Southeast
I think that it is unholy that the County and the City of Homestead are literally in bed with FPL.
The love affair with Homestead was warmed in 2003 when the city council had a FPL Management person on the board. The city was even at the time being courted by FPL was a possible buyer for the Homestead Utility. Can you imagine the off-the-record chit-chat between FPL and city people? The Sunshine Law was not an issue for some people.
Of course, a city with it's own power plant still needs FPL to sustain it's wild growth management plan. The city is after the air base and wants all that area to be in the city boundaries. (If this has hasn't been accomplished yet, it will be.)
The chamber loves FPL as well. These groups all feed off each other: growth = money = keeps the board happy. So why would they not love each other?
On June 7, 2007 Florida Power & Light announced it had filed an application seeking county approval for up to two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point in South Miami-Dade. That is great, except the only people who are following that sort of news are the activists. Other affected people are too tangled in their webs of daily living to research and chase down the facts that are important to their family's safety.
The County needs FPL's goodwill. The County Officals have electric needs to pay for and a real need for quick responses from their executives. Previously, FPL had a lovely page on the county website. I didn't see it today when I looked, but if it was removed, I am sure it was to protect us from something. May be like, protecting us from free advertising?
FPL could very well put windmills (or the like) out at Turkey Point. They could also put as much time and money into alternate energy as they do marketing the new nuclear plants. Gosh, they have some dandy film of the nuclear waste containers being plowed into by a train. Look! No rupture! No contamination issues! Yay. So, lets call nuclear power CLEAN energy! And so goes the plan.
The facts are: We, the consumer, will be nailed with FPL's cost of doing business, whether they are using nukes, coal, gas or wind. We are going to pay up front, so we should have a say-so in the choice of bio-hazards we fund or chose not to fund.
PS: All you folks living in the Nuke zone... READ your freaking safety guides. You should have them by now. It is a piece of marketing that leaves you warm and secure.
You better think twice about living that close to 4 nuke plants. When you pack your clothes to leave your home (in case, of an unlikely nuclear event), you are going to have to trust that all those people listed in that Nuclear Safety Guide are not going to panic, and they are going to do what FPL promises. I am not too sure that school bus drivers are really going to want to drive into the contaminated area to pick up kids and move them to their safety zones at other schools.
You all would be licking FP&L's feet, if your power went out for more than one hour.
Now zip it, and pay up.
m
Not a moderate, always wrong except once as I recall.
Solar can be an ameliorating factor, but not a complete answer. The land requirements are too great for any large scale commercial implementation to take root. Eventualy, we will be arguing about destruction of the fragile ecosystem in Florida to serve the ravenous land grabs of the solar power industry. (And if that's not high irony, I don't know what is...) So you're down to who can afford the investment necessary to actually go off the grid. Everyone here who screams of class warfare should consider that and take it to its logical conclusion.
To the person who suggested windmills at T-Point... Wind generation needs vast amounts of land as well. They also need consistent winds above a certain velocity in order to operate efficiently. Those velocities are not found consistently in Florida, but when they are, it is usually on oceanfront property. Exhorbitant costs and lifestyle questions aside, how do you pacify the "cute and furry" wing of the environmental lobby, when we want to locate windmills amid the fragile ecosystems of the coast?
With regard to FPL's support for a new compensation scheme: I can't speak to that. I don't work for FPL, and I don't know the cost/benefit analysis they engage in to take the position they do. My guess is that decoupling revenues from sales at this point represents too much risk for the company, in that they are not experiencing an appreciable downward trend in demand. Revenue decoupling only makes sense to a utility if they expect their sales to drop over the long term. At this point, the population growth in FPL's territory is still positive, and demand forecasts are still growing. I am not sure what role FPL itself plays in increasing energy demand. They dont sell appliances, and as far as I know they don't actively encourage you to keep the lights on longer at home, or outdo your neighbor's festival of lights during the holidays.
Mary Olson is right- there is but a trickle of oil and gas and a small pile of uranium. And we have to adjust to that fact now, before it is too late. But my question remains: When faced with the cost of all of this, costs which ratepayers will invariably bear, who among us is willing, and able, to afford it? Genius says she will, so that's one. It takes alot more than one.
Our society isn't built to see long-term. That is the greatest danger we face. Bigger than any environmental or social challenge. Because a lack of vision makes all those other evils possible.
PS- My money is on ocean current and tidal energy. I'm always up for a fish fry...
And bagel power? That's just silly.
I think the Bagel Power was a joke on you Nonee, the person obviously hit on your name.
Anyway, I value your astute comments and welcome this dialogue we are having here. I wish I knew more, that is why I have a beef with the Herald, they are not supplying us with enough information from the other side, where I would like us to be. Steve Seibert, previously a head of DCA (See my post of Nov. 21, 2007) said that all homes should have cisterns and solar panels. If this were to happen, we wouldn't be having giant fields of panels as you suggested. He was certainly against that.
I would care less if my "utility" power went out. Our home has been on a wind/solar system for many years, and is still growing strong. The only downside is it's not cheap to install but did pay for itself after 3 years of being "off the grid".
G.O.D
Just want to remind you that most forms of electric generation, even some forms of solar, use water to generate steam. Nuclear is not unique in using steam to power turbines. Also to comment on the dialog that nonee moose has entered; until some form of cost effective energy storage is developed there will be a requirement to have backup generation available anytime the “wind don’t blow or the sun don’t shine”. Last time I looked the sun don’t shine about half the day on average.
Thanks exFPLer. All good things to know.
You may have caught my other blog NO NEW NUKES. I didn't say NO NUKES...I want us to work with what we have and add to it in "GREENER" ways. I know that solar can't do it all yet, and maybe never, but let's hope in the future solar will pull it weight.
The problem is systemic and clearly there is no innovation or desire to change. If FPL can muddle through with the rest of the electric grid suppliers why should they change? Passing the extra fuel costs on to consumers was approved by the PSC, which as we know stands for Power Suppliers Conspirator. We need to find the next Charles Proteus Steinmetz, but I'm afraid he/she is working on cellphone sunglasses for the Miami crowd. Oops did I spill the beans?
M - Those of us who lived in the area from SW 186 street south to turkey point and further south in Key Largo lived weeks, if not months without power after Hurricane Andrew. It was not convenient, however it is surprising how well we adapt as a community.
Nonee - Your point being? We should just continue on with Turkey Point 5 & 6? I believe that the birds and furry creatures would adapt to the wisp wisp wisp sound of the windmills. If I am not mistaken, the birds thrive too well at the air force base and the bunny's pro-create, hmmm, like bunnys under the sound of jets at MIA.
I also want to remind you that there is a newly discovered siting mechanism for solar panels. This is particularly exciting news considering the situation here in Florida, particularly, South Florida. The news is there are this things called: rooftops! :o
I think there are about 22,000 acres out at Turkey Point. Is that the correct number? Seems like that is plenty of acreage to do some pilot programs with alternate energy sources. On the other hand, it is plenty of room to store nuclear waste, since we have an issue with the movement of waste materials.
Of course, FPL still has the water needs issue. (Wasn't that about 80,000-90,000 gallons a day?)
FPL can build a pipeline from the South Dade caca plant for gray water (brown water?) to provide for the nukes water needs. Or speaking of tidal flow, FPL has also toyed with the idea of sucking salt water from the Atlantic Ocean (no harm done to the National Park, of course. Salt water apparently is not corrosive to nuke equipment.
I would like to see the NRC requirements for securing these plants. I bet they are not what one would expect.
youbetcha, my point, among other things, is that we are all faced with an economic decision to an environmental problem. And that while some of us can absorb the costs of all these wonderful solutions everyone is so certain about, no solution is that easy. Personally, I have no problem with having renewable generation integrated with our environmentally sensitive areas in a way that does little if any harm. But not everyone feels that way. My point, also, is that people like you (no offense) offer rooftops as if the word alone represented an answer so self-evident that we should all knock ourselves in the forehead for being so blind to not see it so plainly. It's the same mentality that leads one to think that being close to a power plant will help you get your power back sooner when it goes out. I will risk my better judgement to assume you've lived long enough to know nothing is ever that simple, lest you be knocked on the forehead a few times yourself. You may need ice for your head. Lots of it.
Most generation plants, nuclear or not, need several million gallons per day cycling through the system. And yes, water sources are the main issue for any plant.
Should Turkey Point 5 & 6 move forward? Yes as long as the case is made for their need (in terms of demand) and an acceptable environmental risk, whatever that is. We don't have the luxury of flashcutting over to renewables in order to meet the bulk of our future demand, not just merely from the size of it, but also from th enature of that demand as well. Most future demand is not discretionary in nature, that it can use power when power is available. We are talking hospitals and schools, police stations, even the offices that will administer universal healthcare. Get it?
I'm not against windmills per se. But that is not a solution here. You would need 2000 windmills to offset the new nuclear plants, assuming they could run all day. I defy you to find even the greenest of engineers who will say that is possible anywhere, much less here.
Yes, if more people took it on themselves to put solar panels on their roofs, perhaps the need for large additional plants might be curbed somewhat. But that still doesn't address the economics problem. Only those who can afford to do it will. And what of those who can't? Where is the safety net for those people who, by the way, breakout along the same lines as the wealth distribution in this country. What do they do, rub two sticks togehter? Sounds mighty republican to me (again, no offense).
You say that nuclear is an "Acceptable environmental risk". That is where the difference lies.
The technology today cannot generate enough electricity...we all agree on that. But, we are hoping that with money put towards research, perhaps in the future, it can. They haven't even tried to replace our energy sources of today. We are always a couple of beats behind.
I believe nuclear is an acceptable environmental risk, yes. I don't get to make that call, however, and I am able to live with the alternative, so long as the level of reliability we enjoy today can be maintained. To consider alternatives that cannot ensure that level at this point should not be an option, because we would not merely be talking about changing our culture towards conservation, we would be attempting to turn back time.
And that is unrealistic. I am also told it is impossible, except for some guy in California.
December 17, 2008 -http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=54292
Wind, Water and Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear and Coal for Energy Generation, Study Says
Wind power is the most promising alternative source of energy, according to Mark Jacobson.
by Louis Bergeron, Stanford News Writer
California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.
And "clean coal," which involves capturing carbon emissions and sequestering them in the earth, is not clean at all, he asserts.
Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options. The paper with his findings will be published in the next issue of Energy and Environmental Science and is available online here. Jacobson is also director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford.
"The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful," Jacobson said. "Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels." He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.
The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife.
To place the various alternatives on an equal footing, Jacobson first made his comparisons among the energy sources by calculating the impacts as if each alternative alone were used to power all the vehicles in the United States, assuming only "new-technology" vehicles were being used. Such vehicles include battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and "flex-fuel" vehicles that could run on a high blend of ethanol called E85.
Wind was by far the most promising, Jacobson said, owing to a better-than 99 percent reduction in carbon and air pollution emissions; the consumption of less than 3 square kilometers of land for the turbine footprints to run the entire U.S. vehicle fleet (given the fleet is composed of battery-electric vehicles); the saving of about 15,000 lives per year from premature air-pollution-related deaths from vehicle exhaust in the United States; and virtually no water consumption. By contrast, corn and cellulosic ethanol will continue to cause more than 15,000 air pollution-related deaths in the country per year, Jacobson asserted.
Because the wind turbines would require a modest amount of spacing between them to allow room for the blades to spin, wind farms would occupy about 0.5 percent of all U.S. land, but this amount is more than 30 times less than that required for growing corn or grasses for ethanol. Land between turbines on wind farms would be simultaneously available as farmland or pasture or could be left as open space.
Indeed, a battery-powered U.S. vehicle fleet could be charged by 73,000 to 144,000 5-megawatt wind turbines, fewer than the 300,000 airplanes the U.S. produced during World War II and far easier to build. Additional turbines could provide electricity for other energy needs.
"There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession," Jacobson said. "Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power."
Jacobson said that while some people are under the impression that wind and wave power are too variable to provide steady amounts of electricity, his research group has already shown in previous research that by properly coordinating the energy output from wind farms in different locations, the potential problem with variability can be overcome and a steady supply of baseline power delivered to users.
Jacobson's research is particularly timely in light of the growing push to develop biofuels, which he calculated to be the worst of the available alternatives. In their effort to obtain a federal bailout, the Big Three Detroit automakers are increasingly touting their efforts and programs in the biofuels realm, and federal research dollars have been supporting a growing number of biofuel-research efforts.
"That is exactly the wrong place to be spending our money. Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels," Jacobson said. "We should be spending to promote energy technologies that cause significant reductions in carbon emissions and air-pollution mortality, not technologies that have either marginal benefits or no benefits at all."
"Obviously, wind alone isn't the solution," Jacobson said. "It's got to be a package deal, with energy also being produced by other sources such as solar, tidal, wave and geothermal power."
During the recent presidential campaign, nuclear power and clean coal were often touted as energy solutions that should be pursued, but nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration were Jacobson's lowest-ranked choices after biofuels. "Coal with carbon sequestration emits 60- to 110-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy, and nuclear emits about 25-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy," Jacobson said. Although carbon-capture equipment reduces 85-90 percent of the carbon exhaust from a coal-fired power plant, it has no impact on the carbon resulting from the mining or transport of the coal or on the exhaust of other air pollutants. In fact, because carbon capture requires a roughly 25-percent increase in energy from the coal plant, about 25 percent more coal is needed, increasing mountaintop removal and increasing non-carbon air pollution from power plants, he said.
Nuclear power poses other risks. Jacobson said it is likely that if the United States were to move more heavily into nuclear power, then other nations would demand to be able to use that option.
"Once you have a nuclear energy facility, it's straightforward to start refining uranium in that facility, which is what Iran is doing and Venezuela is planning to do," Jacobson said. "The potential for terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon or for states to develop nuclear weapons that could be used in limited regional wars will certainly increase with an increase in the number of nuclear energy facilities worldwide." Jacobson calculated that if one small nuclear bomb exploded, the carbon emissions from the burning of a large city would be modest, but the death rate for one such event would be twice as large as the current vehicle air pollution death rate summed over 30 years.
Finally, both coal and nuclear energy plants take much longer to plan, permit and construct than do most of the other new energy sources that Jacobson's study recommends. The result would be even more emissions from existing nuclear and coal power sources as people continue to use comparatively "dirty" electricity while waiting for the new energy sources to come online, Jacobson said.
Jacobson received no funding from any interest group, company or government agency.
Energy and vehicle options, from best to worst, according to Jacobson's calculations:
Best to worst electric power sources:
1. Wind power 2. concentrated solar power (CSP) 3. geothermal power 4. tidal power 5. solar photovoltaics (PV) 6. wave power 7. hydroelectric power 8. a tie between nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
Best to worst vehicle options:
1. Wind-BEVs (battery electric vehicles) 2. wind-HFCVs (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) 3.CSP-BEVs 4. geothermal-BEVs 5. tidal-BEVs 6. solar PV-BEVs 7. Wave-BEVs 8.hydroelectric-BEVs 9. a tie between nuclear-BEVs and coal-CCS-BEVs 11. corn-E85 12.cellulosic-E85.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were examined only when powered by wind energy, but they could be combined with other electric power sources. Although HFCVs require about three times more energy than do BEVs (BEVs are very efficient), HFCVs are still very clean and more efficient than pure gasoline, and wind-HFCVs still resulted in the second-highest overall ranking. HFCVs have an advantage in that they can be refueled faster than can BEVs (although BEV charging is getting faster). Thus, HFCVs may be useful for long trips (more than 250 miles) while BEVs more useful for trips less than 250 miles. An ideal combination may be a BEV-HFCV hybrid.
Nonee:
I was not being literal about roof tops... it was more or less tongue-in-cheek...
Just the same though, we are not making the most of the existing opportunities to ease the power need by using other technologies.
And living next to 4 nukes doesn't sound healthful and doesn't sound secure to me. I do consider my family and friends part of the environmental landscape, and I care what we do us just as much as I care about what happens to the birds and bees.
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Nuclear power has benefits; being truly 'clean' isn't one
Monday, January 05, 2009
A report recommending how to make Florida's power companies more
"green" is too kind to nuclear power.
Gov. Crist and the Legislature originally asked the PSC to draft a
plan for Florida to get 20 percent of its power from "renewable"
sources. The definition of "renewable" did not include nuclear power.
The staff of the Public Service Commission last week said utilities
should be able to meet the goal using "clean" sources as well and that nuclear power generated from new plants should qualify as "clean." The staff also recommends that utilities have until 2041 to meet the 20 percent standard.
The timeline is too long. And the recommendations favoring nuclear
power take away incentives for innovation in wind, solar, tidal and
other alternative energy sources that are renewable.
Not surprisingly Florida Power & Light - which already plans new
nuclear units - pushed for nuclear power's "clean" status and welcomed
the staff's recommendation. "With a clean-energy standard that
includes new nuclear generation as well as wind and solar, we can
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce costs, dampen fuel price
volatility for customers, and meet aggressive targets that should
ultimately be adopted by the state," FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said.
FPL and other utilities have said they are concerned that energy from
wind and solar sources would be too expensive and drive up customers'
rates. While it's always good to be skeptical of utilities' claims
about rates, some facts do favor nuclear power.
Although building and operating nuclear plants is very expensive, the amount of power generated is far above anything achievable today
through wind or solar generation. And nuclear power is "clean" in the
sense that it does not emit greenhouse gasses.
But can a technology that produces waste that remains lethal for
centuries really be termed clean?
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission classifies spent fuel rods from nuclear plants as "high level nuclear waste," described this way on the NRC Web site: "Since the only way radioactive waste finally
becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can
take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and
finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the
public for a very long time."
But plans to create an underground high-level waste storage facility
at Yucca Mountain, Nev., remain stalled. In the meantime, nuclear
plants must store the waste on-site.
The Public Service Commission on Friday holds a hearing on the staff
recommendation and must recommend a plan to the Legislature by Feb. 1.
After that the Legislature, as always, is free to rewrite any
proposal.
Nuclear might have to be part of the final "green" mix, particularly
if the state, as it should, sets a deadline earlier than 2041, which
is 16 years later than the deadline other states have adopted.
But to keep up the pressure to develop truly clean and renewable
sources such as solar, any percentage of new nuclear capacity that can be used to meet the goal of 20 percent clean or renewable energy should be capped.
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