Friday, February 12, 2016

Reality: Natural gas, not "could'a, would'a, should'a" renewables

Diablo Canyon
"We could'a used renewables"

Oddly, that is a cry that nobody is crying, as nuclear plants shut down and gas plants spring up in their absence.  When nuclear plants close, natural gas plants take their place.

On this blog, I tend to write about Vermont Yankee. (Not surprising.)

At Northwest Clean Energy blog, I generalized the Vermont Yankee experience of nuclear-to-natural gas by looking at the Western U.S.  My post is Reality: Less nuclear means more natural gas.   I described the replacement of nuclear-electricity by gas-electricity that  happened when San Onofre closed. I look at what would happen if Diablo Canyon or Columbia Generating Station closed.

Yeah, you can guess.  Nuclear power is (or would be) replaced by natural gas.  More carbon dioxide and more air pollution will enter the atmosphere.

The final paragraph of that post is: We need to keep Columbia Generating Station and all other sources of low-carbon power. Because if we don’t, despite should’a, would’a, could’a … our current low carbon power will be replaced by natural gas.

I hope you will read the post.






1 comment:

Unknown said...

The problem for nuclear power in California is that there is a sales tax of fuel so natural gas brings in lots of tax dollars.

The problem with natural gas in the PNW is where is the gas going to come from? The gas pipelines to the PNW are near capacity. Governors of Washington and Oregon have been trying to close the one coal plant in each state for years. I suppose someone whispers, ‘Who is Grey Davis?’.

I lived and worked in Washington State for many years. I was at a meeting with my boss to discuss the need for new capacity. The state official responsible for this said he asked his people if there was enough pipeline capacity. My boss and I looked at each other. We knew the answer and it was no!

The problem was solved sending lots of jobs to China. That is what happens when the cost of power goes.