Post by jeffolie on Jun 15, 2013 8:28:23 GMT -6
BIG SOLAR'S PUSH: replace dead nuke power
Big Solar dominates utilities and govts approach for crony capitalism guaranteed profits. The developers, contractors collect loans and then pay their managements bonuses plus shareholders dividends when the loans to perform the Big Solar developements first become funded ... afterwards, the poor electrical performance plus bankruptcies leave the taxpayers holding the bagfor Chinese manufactured solar panels.
Below an editorial entirely ignores Small Solar while only glossing over the corrupt Big Solar approach.
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Life after San Onofre is green: Editorial
By Los Angeles News Groupdailynews.com
June 14, 2013
"Clean, safe, too cheap to meter" - crazy as it may seem, that was the mantra of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s and '60s.
What seems like blatant corporate propaganda from the vantage point of 2013 was at the time somewhat understandable.
Clean? No smokestacks, that's for sure. Safe? Chernobyl was in the future. Cheap? That was the promise of the nuclear engineers, who failed to take into account that little problem of disposing of radioactive waste.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the tide has turned against nuclear power worldwide, probably irrevocably. Even formerly die-hard nuclear power proponents, who still like the technology for its major advantage of no greenhouse gas emissions, now acknowledge that from a public-relations standpoint, their goose is cooked. And the very idea of building a nuclear plant on a coastline, where a tsunami such as the one that hit Japan can endanger the world, seems foolhardy.
That's why Southern California Edison's decision this month to finally shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant in northern San Diego County was correct. It would have been correct even absent the leaky tubes that have plagued the plant since a retrofit several years ago. But it turns out that decommissioning San Onofre is going to be a lot harder than building it. Rather than a matter of a few years, experts say that it could be half a century before the plant is gone. It's not just the 3-foot-thick,steel-reinforced concrete walls. The problem from hell: 3 million pounds of spent fuel so radioactive that there is no repository engineered to take it.
Nuclear power without a plan for its waste was a monumentally terrible idea. But so is burning coal, which contributes so mightily to global warming. As it looks to energy sources for a sustainable future, SCE needs to get truly serious about going green. Compared to these properly discredited power sources, investing in solar and wind power right now looks cheap indeed. Yes, they have their own problems - solar arrays use a lot of land; wind turbines kill birds. But cloudy Germany already produces 3 percent of its power with solar, with a goal of 25 percent by 2050. California's deserts have sun, wind and room to spare. Let's stop sending future generations the problems of our energy follies.
www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23455303/life-after-san-onofre-is-green-editorial
Big Solar dominates utilities and govts approach for crony capitalism guaranteed profits. The developers, contractors collect loans and then pay their managements bonuses plus shareholders dividends when the loans to perform the Big Solar developements first become funded ... afterwards, the poor electrical performance plus bankruptcies leave the taxpayers holding the bagfor Chinese manufactured solar panels.
Below an editorial entirely ignores Small Solar while only glossing over the corrupt Big Solar approach.
========================================================================
Life after San Onofre is green: Editorial
By Los Angeles News Groupdailynews.com
June 14, 2013
"Clean, safe, too cheap to meter" - crazy as it may seem, that was the mantra of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s and '60s.
What seems like blatant corporate propaganda from the vantage point of 2013 was at the time somewhat understandable.
Clean? No smokestacks, that's for sure. Safe? Chernobyl was in the future. Cheap? That was the promise of the nuclear engineers, who failed to take into account that little problem of disposing of radioactive waste.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the tide has turned against nuclear power worldwide, probably irrevocably. Even formerly die-hard nuclear power proponents, who still like the technology for its major advantage of no greenhouse gas emissions, now acknowledge that from a public-relations standpoint, their goose is cooked. And the very idea of building a nuclear plant on a coastline, where a tsunami such as the one that hit Japan can endanger the world, seems foolhardy.
That's why Southern California Edison's decision this month to finally shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant in northern San Diego County was correct. It would have been correct even absent the leaky tubes that have plagued the plant since a retrofit several years ago. But it turns out that decommissioning San Onofre is going to be a lot harder than building it. Rather than a matter of a few years, experts say that it could be half a century before the plant is gone. It's not just the 3-foot-thick,steel-reinforced concrete walls. The problem from hell: 3 million pounds of spent fuel so radioactive that there is no repository engineered to take it.
Nuclear power without a plan for its waste was a monumentally terrible idea. But so is burning coal, which contributes so mightily to global warming. As it looks to energy sources for a sustainable future, SCE needs to get truly serious about going green. Compared to these properly discredited power sources, investing in solar and wind power right now looks cheap indeed. Yes, they have their own problems - solar arrays use a lot of land; wind turbines kill birds. But cloudy Germany already produces 3 percent of its power with solar, with a goal of 25 percent by 2050. California's deserts have sun, wind and room to spare. Let's stop sending future generations the problems of our energy follies.
www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23455303/life-after-san-onofre-is-green-editorial