71–80 of 397 posts
Hypothetically, if I build a big coal power plant across the border to power a giant light array shining on solar cells on the CA side, does that count?
Currently, I buy all my electricity from renewables. The price I pay per kwh is lower than conventional generation. However, the state of California has given PG&E a monopoly on electricity distribution, and PG&E charges me the difference between the generation charge from renewables and its own generation charge as a 'distribution fee'. This fee is waived, if i used PG&E generation. Until California kicks out PG&E's…
I don’t really see how California could practically kick out PG&E’s monopoly. There won’t magically be a bunch of competitors that string is their own power lines. CA could potentially take over entirely and run its own system, which might not be totally crazy. Some cities (e.g. Palo Alto and Los Angeles) already do this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear waste is not an actual problem and the only reason there is no 'solution' is because it has turned into a political shit show. Worrying about nuclear waste at the beginning of the nuclear age when most of that waste is actually valuable fuel is downright idiotic.
No, it actually is a problem. It has to be stored for millennia, and in a way that does not leak/contaminate surroundings (including ground water). Very little technology /materials can meet those requirements[0], and the current situation is a damn mess[1]. 0. http://www.nwtrb.gov/docs/default-source/reports/synopsis-of... 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/0...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nuclear waste is not an actual problem If you're comfortable eating food grown in the soil grown around uranium processing plants then by all means go ahead.
I am fully comfortable with that (not parent though) and have even done so on several occasions. You do realize we can detect contamination by radioactive elements in quatities many orders of magnitude lower than could conceivably cause any harm right? On the other hand, I live in Europe and our local government has yet to produce a complete environment monitoring fail such as the Flint incident in the USA.
Is nuclear part of the bill? It is clean but I don't see any mention of it either way in the article other than in the graph of current sources.
Whenever I ride around Berkeley, CA I see a sea of "nuclear-free zone" signs on roads filled with Prius traffic. It's not so easy to understand the real agendas here.
The real agenda has a lot more to do with impressing your neighbors with how eco-conscious you are (ideally via cheap signals like signs and bumper stickers) than it does with costly and difficult initiatives like figuring out how to meet the world's energy requirements in a sustainable way.
Once again, making me proud to pay CA taxes. If they do not take large hydro into account when calculating this 100%, I wonder what we'll do with the dams. Destroy them to let the rivers free-flow again? Dams would have been a great store of energy for this project by pumping the water up during the day using solar/wind. Tesla Energy must be salivating at all those batteries that will need to be constructed.
They can be useful, but we've also overdone it a bit.
Hypothetically, if I build a big coal power plant across the border to power a giant light array shining on solar cells on the CA side, does that count?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sooner it shuts down the better, given the design and risks of the plant[1] 1 - https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents...
Absolute bullshit. Its one of the best run and safest nuclear plants in the world. Union of concerned scientists is nothing but an anti-nuclear lobbying group the same as Greenpeace and others. All they do is spread FUD or outright lies.
The latest generation of nuclear power plants are very safe and have passive nuclear safety which requires no active measures to shut down a reactor safely which significantly reduces the risk of a meltdown. The biggest problem with nuclear power is old generation power plants that fail and cause negative sentiment towards nuclear power. I really hope we invest in generation IV nuclear power plants which deal with reducing nuclear waste and adds even more safety.
That's very interesting. Right now California seems to run about 40-60% renewable according to https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
California is at a bit of a tipping point. It has so much renewable energy, it has to pay other states to export their excessive energy because they don't have enough storage [1]. So you have to decide if you're going to subsidize utility scale energy storage to help drive it below the cost of fossil and peaker generators (which, it appears, California is prepared to do). It also helps that renewables are quickly app…