I see the Mothers for Peace is once again assuring us that PG&E will keep its word and replace Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s production with a cost-effective, greenhouse-gas-free portfolio of whatever (“Our energy future doesn’t include nuclear,” May 2). I assume they are referring to the same PG&E that promised it wouldn’t start any more fires; the same PG&E that is not going to be keeping a whole lot of promises because it is bankrupt, and the same PG&E that has recently been abandoned by most of the corporate officers that made all those promises. Yeah, right. I should know as I was once a shareholder, and it promised to pay me dividends.
It doesn’t matter anyway, and the logic is simple, so simple that it is possibly understandable even to the Mothers for Peace. If this wondrous greenhouse-gas-free portfolio is dedicated to replacing the massive non-carbon-emitting production of Diablo Canyon, that means it is not reducing an equally massive amount of production from carbon-emitting sources elsewhere. The end result is more greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere. That’s it, or would it help if I wrote bigger or something?
All I know for sure is that besides adding carbon to the atmosphere, the closure of Diablo Canyon will also cost our community hundreds of millions in local tax revenue over a 20-year period, and a billion or so a year in indirect economic benefits. It will force the relocation of well more than a thousand of our neighbors and their families, who have lived and worked in this community for decades. It seems a heavy price to pay just because some people are scared of nuclear power, which over time has proven to be the safest of all forms of power production. So much for the Home of the Brave.
Mark Henry
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in May 9-19, 2019.
Mark my words Henry, your information is not supportable by actual facts and sounds like pure industry puffery. More nuke plants are closing than opening. Why? Too expensive, uninsurable (except by the taxpayers) and still no place to put the deadliest toxic material ever generated by humankind. Nice try, though.
Latte,
Um, nothing you said contradicts anything Mark said, i.e., that nuclear doesn’t emit CO2 and provides a lot of local jobs and taxes. Or his main point that renewables should be used to replace fossil fuels, not nuclear.
The reason for nuclear plant closures is that they receive no financial benefit for their non-polluting, non-CO2-emitting nature, and are forced to compete directly with fossil generators that get to pollute the air for free. Renewables, OTOH, do NOT have to compete with fossil sources because they all receive large subsidies and outright mandates for use. If nuclear (e.g., Diablo) received the same subsidies that all renewables do, NO nuclear plants would be closing.
The nuclear waste “problem” has been technically solved for a long time. The long-term hazard from nuclear waste, in a repository like Yucca Mountain, would be *smaller* than that of most other waste streams, including those from wind and solar.
Plants are closing because of corporations like PG&E who own them found they could make more money for shareholders switching to natural gas for producing electricity. The deadliest toxic waste you mention has never killed or even injured a single human being. How can it be called deadly? Your imagination, thats how. We humans are in a fight for our survival with global warming advancing faster each year. Scientists predicted this and its all coming true – monster hurricanes in Africa, Florida, Texas and all over the world. Sea rise forcing people from cities and villages around the globe. And the devastation is only and the very beginning of global warming.. Read a book for education. I suggest Dr. Joshua Goldsteins very good new book titled The Bright Future. He lays out what we could have and how we could save the world for our children with clean, carbon free nuclear power. The whole US Navy seems to love that energy source. Its time to abandon those fun demonstrations. (I called them Fear Festivals.)We cant afford that kind of fun any longer.
William Gloege, Santa Maria
Letter writer Mark Henry is correct. In terms of actual injury or fatalities, Nuclear Power is by a wide margin the safest. Google safest means of generating electricity.
The above anonymous comment is not supported by facts. This reader likely don’t know as a consequence of fracking, a billion cubic feet of natural gas is being wastefully flared in the U.S. EACH DAY. That is a symptom of a glut of natural gas. The natural gas industry is ahem ” lobbying” throughout the U.S. to eliminate the only large-scale competition to natural gas, namely nuclear power. They have enlisted the support of poorly-informed groups such as SLO MFP to help them to expand their market share. You may also be surprised to learn that natural gas is the secret friend of solar and wind generators. See this 2016 Washington Post story http://tinyurl.com/Natural-Gas-Secret . To learn more, please visit CGNP dot com – Gene Nelson, Ph.D., San Luis Obispo
Another hit piece on clean energy by the SLOtimes… you people don’t care about emissions or jobs. I doubt any of you have taken the tour out there… go to the visitor center! Think!
This article speaks the truth, and Mothers for Peace and all other anti-human, disgraceful-green organizations should be ASHAMED of themselves for the lack of accountability and transparency.
These organizations have failed the human species by making a devils bargain for Natural Gas, with with ZERO meaningful protections for the climate. All just so they can further their own ignorant, fear-driven anti-nuclear zealotry.
See here: https://www.ecowatch.com/diablo-canyon-closure-2524855951.html
The climate weeps and warms at the closure of Diablo Canyon. The logic is INEXCUSABLE!! How can you shutter zero-emission electricity in an age of climate change BEFORE you shutter fossil fuels?! It’s just HEINOUS and reprehensible beyond reason.
The anti-science, anti-human ‘green’ groups will be the death of us all.