Indian Point, Aerial view, courtesy Earth Institute

Indian Point’s two reactors, operating since 1974 and 1976, generate up to 30 percent of New York City and Westchester’s power. Yet the plant remains controversial.

March 1, 2012, Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law, moderated  the Forum on the Future of Indian Point held at Columbia Law School. The forum asked whether Indian Point was “Safe, Secure and Vital or an Unacceptable Risk?”   Renee Cho covered it on the Columbia Earth Institute blog, here.

I was not there. However, have some thoughts …

Indian Point is close to 40 years old, is 30 miles from New York City, was built on two earthquake faults. A 6.0 or 7.0 earthquake under Indian Point would not surprise seismologists. Routine operations kill more than 1.0 billion fish, shrimp, and crabs in the 912.5 billion gallons of water it pulls out of the Hudson each year (2.5 billion gallons per day – almost double the drinking water consumed by New York City’s people). Routine operations also flush tritium into the Hudson, simply because, tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is too expensive to capture. Indian Point’s operator, Entergy, was just fined $1.2 million for a fire at Indian Point (Matt Wald, of the NY Times, covered it here on March 27, 2012).

The discussion at Columbia brought together Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, Ashok Gupta, director of energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Arthur Kremer, a founder and chairman of the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, a lobbying group for the nuclear power industry (according to Source Watch, here), and John Kelly, retired director of licensing for Indian Point.

Gallay and Gupta think Indian Point should be retired. Kremer and Kelly think Indian Point should be relicensed. This is not surprising – environmentalists think nuclear power should be phased out; lobbyists and retired nuclear power industry flaks, people who make their living off of nuclear power, think it’s great.

Riverkeeper has pulled together information on the life-cycle analysis of nuclear power generally and Indian Point in particular, here, “Indian Point Fails the “Green Test.”

The questions then, remain:

• How do we power the future?
• What are the environmental impacts of continuing to operate Indian Point and other nuclear power plants?
• Do Entergy and other Nuclear power plant operators operate Indian Point and other plants safely?
• Can they be operated safely?
• If we shut down Indian Point, what are the costs of not operating it safely? That is of safely not-operating the plant, as opposed to operating it in an unsafe manner.

Suppose we replace nuclear power with wind, solar, geothermal, marine hydro, and other renewable technologies. What are the environmental impacts of

• Wind farms composed of 200 to 500 turbines, each rated for 6.0 MW turbines – with 154 meter blades curving a swath thru 71,480 square meters of air?
• Solar energy on a utility scale?
• Marine hydro turbines?
• Geothermal systems?

And really – what choices do we have?

Happy Earth Day.  Think for the Future.

• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 1, L. Furman, 4/20/12, here.
• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 2, L. Furman, 4/20/12, here.
• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 3, L. Furman, 4/21/12, here.

Turbines at Windeby

Rather than “Can we get away from Nuclear Power?” The real questions we need to ask ourselves are:

1. How quickly can we phase out nuclear power?
2. What will it cost?
3. Given that a definition of insanity is doing the same behavior but expecting different results, and that in the 65 years since the Price Anderson Act relieved electric utilities and power plant operators of the requirement to insure nuclear power plants, essentially socializing the risk, and the 33 years since the Three Mile Island incident we’ve sustained one partial melt-down, at Three Mile Island in 1979, one melt-down at Chernobyl in 1986, and three melt-downs at Fukushima in 2011 … Why are we not drawing up plans to shut down all nuclear power plants?

In 2011, Siemens delivered the 6.0 MW Turbina Sapiens (here). This technology promises to answer the questions 1 and 2 above “Soon” and “for less than you think.” It doesn’t answer question “3.” (Siemens Offshore Wind Solutions here and here.)

Here’s a Siemens wind timeline:

• 1991 – Vindeby, Denmark, the world’s offshore wind farm, with all 11 turbines still operating today.
• 2000 – Middelgrunden, the first offshore wind farm using multi-megawatt turbines.
• 2003 – Nysted, Denmark, 165 MW wind farm – then the world’s largest.
• 2009 – Horns Rev II, a 200 MW wind farm, breaks the record.
• 2011 – Siemens delivers the first 6.0 MW direct drive Wind Turbine.
• 2012 – London, England. The 1.0 GW London Array will redefine the capabilities of offshore wind power.

And a summary of wind projects around the world, at CleanTechnica.

Happy Earth Day.  Think for the Future.

• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 1, L. Furman, 4/20/12, here.
• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 2, L. Furman, 4/20/12, here.
• Do We Need Nuclear Power, Part 3, L. Furman, 4/21/12, here.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, has voted to allow Georgia Power to spend $14 Billion of ratepayer monies to build two reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4 near Waynesboro, Georgia. These would be the first new nuclear plants in the US in 35 years. Opponents say “we don’t need the power, but the utility wants the revenue stream.” Supporting this allegation Georgia Power plans to charge ratepayers – customers – for the costs of construction WHILE BUILDING THE PLANTS – BEFORE THE ARE ONLINE. see Georgia Power – Nuclear – Recovering Financing Costs.

Scott Peterson, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, was quoted on Morning Edition on Friday, 2/10/12, here, ” saying,

Nuclear plants, because they are very large, 24/7 power producers, really anchor the entire U.S. grid for electricity,”

He also said,

“Gas prices are unpredictable, and so is energy from wind and solar.”

He’s wrong on all three counts.

1. Gas prices are rising. They may be difficult to predict on a day to day basis, but the trend is upward.
2. Similarly, solar and wind are also predictable. The Department of Energy, DoE, knows precisely how much wind and sun passes over every square inch of the United States, and how much sunlight hits every square inch of the United States over the course of a year. And how much electricty a wind turbine or a photovoltaic solar energy system will produce anywhere in the US. The PVWatts solar calculator, for example,here, http://www.nrel.gov/rredc/pvwatts/,  tells you how much power a solar array will produce over the course of a year.
3. And nuclear is not 24 x 7. While the waste is 24 hours by 7 days per week by 365 days per year by ten thousand years, nuclear plants are not 24 by 7 days by 365.  They are more like 24 by 7 by 350; they are shut down for about a month for refueling every 18 months. Nuclear plants are also shut down unexpectedly due to events like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods.

The Fort Calhoun reactor, on the Missouri River in Nebraska was shut down for refueling in May, 2011 . It stayed shut down due to flooding. It was offline throughout the summer and fall, (my coverage here and here) and as far as I know it is still offline.  According to David Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the shutdown cost the plant’s owners $1 million per day – $100 million if it was brought back online in September, $250 million if it is still offline. And I would hazard a guess that the owners asked for and received permission to charge the ratepayers those $1.0 million per day. (As far as I know the plant is still offline. I will update this post when I have more information.)

Regarding the Vogtle plants … the plan is to build two Westinghouse AP 1000 pressurized water reactors, here. Theses are 1154 MWe plant, that, according to Westinghouse,

“use the forces of nature and simplicity of design to enhance plant safety and operations and reduce construction costs.”

They are forecast to cost $14 Billion. $14 Billion divided by 2,308 MWe is $6.065 per MWe. That does not include the costs of security, fuel or waste management

Solar and wind costs less, takes a lot less time to deploy, do not require fuel, do not produce dangerous toxic wastes, do not present a target to terrorists and do not require special security infrastructures.

Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts.

This list runs a gamut from business and technology to energy, instability in the Middle East, micro-economics in the United States, politics, and not-yet-pop culture.

1.  Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.
2. The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.
3. There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die.
4. There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea.
5. Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance coops and Food coops, however, will grow 10% to 25%.
6. The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase.
7. The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall.
8. Foreclosures will continue in the United States.
9. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.
10. The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project.

Here are the details … Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Dell, & HP

Apple will continue to reinvent itself, bringing out “the best iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and MacBook – ever.” It won’t get Apple TV right, but no one will care. The Mac Mini will very quietly enter the server space, in workgroups, small companies and science and engineering labs. Software “apps” will be developed on iMacs and Minis for use in the field. It will continue grow by creating then exploiting new markets. It may even get Apple TV right one day. IBM will continue to thrive in computer hardware and software engineering and professional services.

As illustrated, their market capitalizations and stock prices will grow 25%. The valuation of Microsoft may grow 20%. Dell, and HP, however, will not grow more than 10% and will remain well below their historical peaks.

Financial analysts will come to regard Microsoft, MSFT, as analogous to an investor owned utility. They will note that it has completed it’s growth cycle and has leveled off, and will expect dividends, and continue to receive them. One way that it could grow dramatically would be to split into a three companies: a server software company, a business desktop software company, and a home software company, but that idea is 10 years old. They didn’t do it then; they won’t do it now.

HP will continue to gyrate without focus. They designed an inferior tablet, compared to the iPad, and an overpriced tablet compared to the Nook, Kindle and Kindle Fire, and face competition in the printer space from Canon, Sharp, and Xerox. HP will, in 2012, cede the laptop and workstation markets to Dell and Lenovo, and lose market share in the server market to Dell and IBM. They won’t care about the laptop and workstation markets because the margins are so thin, except for Apple, but the loss of the server market will be painful because there are margins and services there. HP needs a Lou Gerstener to make the elephant dance, and return to the “HP Way.” Fiorina didn’t do it. She tried to remake HP in her image rather than return to what Hewlett and Packard did that made HP great. I don’t know if Whitman will do it. She won’t do it in a year, and may wind up fired by a Board that is impatient and bored.

Dell will continue to take it’s customers for granted and treat them badly. While this may not rise to the level of the 2008 settlement between the Attorney General of New York and Dell Computer and Dell Financial, (NY AG Dell site here / NY Times coverage here) bad customer service will not get better. Dell is growing by acquisition, which is an expensive way  to gain customers, typically requiring tremendous leverage putting a heavy burden on staff. It will sacrifice morale for statistics.

This will reflected in the stock prices. Apple, and IBM will increase 25% to 480 (AAPL) and $225 (IBM). Microsoft may grow 20%. Dell, and HP will gyrate but end the year where they started. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will increase about 10% to 1320.

The price of oil will end 2012 at $150 to $170 per barrel. The price of gasoline will hit 6.00 per gallon in California and New York City. People will drive less, and when they buy cars, they will buy more efficient new cars.  Increased CAFE standards, click here for overview, 27.5 mpg, since 1990, which Obama will again try to increase, will continue to annoy Republicans and Tea Party faithful, who will buy more efficient vehicles anyway.  Meanwhile fleet efficiencies will climb faster than the CAFE standards mandate as businesses and municipalities factor in fuel and maintenance costs in the life cycle analyses they perform. Parking lot solar energy systems will spread from California, Texas, and New Jersey to other parts of the country. These will feed the grid and charge electric cars driven by commuters, and generate revenue for the owners.

Nuclear Power & Disasters.

There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea. If Russia, we will not learn of it for days. If China or North Korea we will not learn of it for weeks. If India, the government will blame Pakistan. If Pakistan, the government will blame India, the United States, and Israel. This will have the unintended consequence of driving stronger ties between Israel and India. We will see battery powered Tata Motors cars in Israel, as well as Europe. These will be commuter vehicles. They will not displace trains. We will continue to see high speed rail displace inter-city and regional airplane traffic. And trains will continue to grow, particularly in Europe and Asia.  We will look for evidence of leaked tritium at various nuclear power plants, and find it wherever we look.

There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China in which 20,000 people will die. This will take place in a coal mine, an elementary school, a railroad, a housing project or an airport, another example of unregulated totalitarianistic state capitalism.

Wal-Mart v Credit Unions and Food Co-ops.

Wal-Mart will stop growing. Part of this will be due to gas prices, and higher priced poor quality goods from China. People will stop buying cheap crap they need to replace quickly, and start demanding – and paying for – good, durable, locally sourced goods – goods that are good.

Credit Unions, Mutual Insurance Companies and Food Co-Ops will grow 10% to 25%. Credit Unions and Insurance co-ops will grow, in part, as a result of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. We will also see a slight increase in organic and sustainable farming.  The margins will increase because people will pay more for healthier and better tasting food, and manure will cost less than gas based fertilizers. Ranchers will also begin deploying manure to methane cookers, and will run farm equipment on manure. They – we – will also plant gardens, eat less meat, and get healthier.

Energy  Pundits (funded by coal, methane, and oil industry interests) will continue to call for fracking and carbon sequestration. Politicians will listen oblivious to the facts on water use or pollution costs that will be externalized to future generations. At the same time, conservative politicians will begin to re-assess energy subsidies for coal, oil, methane, and nuclear.

Solar energy capacity in New Jersey and California will increase by about a third, from 400 MW to 600 MW, in Jersey, and from 700 MW to 1 Gigawatt in California. Solar will spread to Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, This will be accompanied by a price drop to below $5.00 per watt, and additional technology breakthroughs in manufacturing and design efficiencies. These phenomena will feed each other in another positive, or reinforcing feedback loop.  Small solar will spread to aboriginal communities in Africa, Australia, South and Central America, and remote parts of Asia.

Iowa gets 20% of it’s electric power from the wind today. This will increase to 25% over 2012.

Wind, hydro, solar hot water, and geothermal will increase by 25% in the Pacific Northwest.

1.0 gigawatts of nameplate capacity in one or two old coal or nuclear plants will be decommissioned, replaced with wind, solar, geothermal, and insulation. This will be done for reasons, having as much to do with economics as the environment.

1.0 million homes in the US will be retrofitted with R25 or better insulation in the walls and attic.

Ground – or water – will be broken as the first offshore wind farms in US waters will be started, either Cape Wind, in the Horseshoe Shoals off Nantucket, or the New Jersey wind farms.

There will also be design breakthroughs in offshore hydro-electric, or marine current generation, and deep geothermal.

The government of Syria will fall, but, as is happening in Egypt, the military will take or hold power. Bashar Al Assad will be killed, like Muammar Gadaffi, by the people at whos heads he has pointed his guns, or he will find refuge in Tehran, Iran, Baghdad, Iraq, or, like Idi Amin, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Iran and Turkey will compete to fill the power vacuum. Since the government of Iran is unstable – the people are hungry for democracy as well as food- this round will go to Turkey. Hamas will continue embrace the Palestinian Authority. It will also continue to call for the destruction of Israel. Without support from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Saudis, these cries will grow louder, harsher, more shrill, yet less effective. The Israelis, however, will grow more frightened and will respond with harsher methods. It’s a reinforcing feedback cycle. Hamas will continue to execute people who call for peace with Israel. Calls for divestiture of Israel by the left in the US and Europe will be ignored.

Back in the US, foreclosures will continue, driving property values down. Many will remain unsold as credit will be expensive and speculators will be cautious.  However, as energy prices climb, and as effective insulation can be made from recycled cellulose (newspaper) treated with boric acid, people who have some equity will invest in negawatts, and nega-fuel-watts. And they will plant gardens.

The Republican Party will be divided over calls by Newt Gingrich and business owners for amnesty for undocumented workers (here), calls by Mitt Romney and Wall Street to allow “the foreclosure process to take its course” (here), and by citizens opposed to the appearance of a biases in favor of illegal aliens and Wall Street “Banksters.” People will turn away from the GOP as they will see adherance to Grover Norquist’s pledge as destructive and unpatriotic, and the focus by John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, on cutting taxes for the 1% while raising taxes on the 99%, which people will perceive as a transfer of wealth to the very wealthy. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is said to have cost Maricopa County $43 million in lawsuits, will resign over his alleged bias against Latinos. The calls for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas, over conflict of interest for not recusing himself over business dealings of Ginny Thomas – Mrs. Justice Thomas – will get louder. Another two or three married members of the House or Senate will be involved in a ‘sexting’ scandal. There will be a scandal involving a prominent Republican politician or her husband involved in ilicit sexual liasons with a professional sex worker of the same gender. This will be immortalized with “Marriage is between a man and a woman. But with sin; anything goes!” The unemployment rate will drop below 8.2%. Elizabeth Warren will be elected Senator from Massachusetts, the Democrats will regain control of the House. Barak Obama will win re-election to the Presidency.

“Vapor Trails,” by Bob Siegel and Roger Saillant will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project. “It’s Rainin’ Outside the Cave” featuring “Sunbathing in Siberia” and other songs of peace, love, and global warming will not become a hit record. Neither Emenim nor Kanye West will do a ‘rap’ version. Rianna will not do a duet with me . Lady Gaga will not moan a version of it. Brittney Spears will not ask about covering any of my songs as part of her “Comeback Tour.” Neither will Justin Timberlake, Justin Beiber, Arlo Guthrie or Tom Paxton. Nor do Siegel, Sallant, or myself seem likely to win MacArthur “Genius Grants.” However, we will develop a screenplay of Vapor Trails which will feature some of my songs, and we ink a film deal.

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Andrew Restuccia and Ben German reported (here) on E2 Wire, “the Hill’s Energy & Environment Blog” that:

Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., automatically shut down Tuesday shortly after a magnitude-5.9 earthquake shook the state and surrounding area.

The plant lost offsite power and is now running its cooling systems on diesel generators….

A dozen nuclear plants in the eastern part of the United States have declared “unusual events” because of the earthquake.

It’s good to know that the diesel powered emergency cooling systems are operational, and the operators (presumably) have sufficient fuel to keep the cooling systems running during the emergency.

But …

1. How long will the plants be offline?
2. Don’t we need the power those plants would generate during and in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake?

This illustrates a major problem with nuclear power:

Rather than enhance the security of the grid and infrastructure nuclear power must be shut down during certain classes of emergency.

A 1.0 gigawatt nuclear power plant is made up of one or two reactors. Both must be shut down during an earthquake, however, as we saw from the melt-downs in Japan, the emergency cooling system must stay up.  A 1.0 gigawatt wind farm is made up of 286 separate and discrete turbines of 3.5 mw each.  A 1.0 gigawatt solar farm is made up of 5 million 200 watt modules and thousands of inverters. These are made up of hundreds or thousands of identical modules.  Like nuclear power plants, they can be engineered to withstand earthquakes. But  unlike nuclear power plants THEY DON’T NEED EMERGENCY POWER DURING THE EMERGENCY! And even if a few solar modules or wind turbines fail due to an earthquake and aftershocks, most will come on after the storm!  And there is no fossil fuel based emergency cooling system needed for solar power or wind power systems!

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In “Why We Still Need Nuclear,” the “op-ed” piece written in the New York Times, July 30, 2011, Tom Kilgore, the President and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, seems to have made up his mind to attempt to complete the Bellefonte 1 nuclear power plant, in Hollywood, Alabama. Mr. Kilgore is in good company: the President of Iran, Mahmoud Achmadinejad, also wants to build nuclear power plants.

The TVA began work on the Bellefonte nuclear plants in 1974. Construction was suspended in 1988, after the TVA spent about $4.1 Billion on the plant. The TVA wants to spend another $5 Billion over the next six to eight years to complete the plant. It would therefore cost a total of $9.1 Billion to construct a 1.26 gigawatt plant. That’s $7.22 Billion per gigawatt, plus interest, over a period that spans 34 years, with construction in three phases: 14 years of work from ’74 to ’88, 22 years of non-work, from ’88 to 2012, and another six to eight years of work. (Times Free Press, TVA News, TVA Environment).

This suggests the real reason why the TVA wants to complete the plant. Currently Bellefonte 1 a $4.1 billion liability on the TVA’s books. If the TVA adds another $5 Billion, this $4.1 hot white elephant will be magically transformed into a cool (but heat producing) 9.1 billion asset.

What else could $9.1 Billion buy?

Wind and solar may not be steady, but they are predictable, and therefore, reliable sources of energy. However, solar, which obviously doesn’t produce any power at night, must be used as a component of a combined cycle power system. This is the only negative.

The Fort Calhoun plant, a few miles north of Omaha, Nebraska, was built on the western bank of the Missouri River. It is today in the middle of the flooded river; has been since June 6, 2011, the plant’s operators found the plant in the middle of the river. Fortunately the plant had been shut-down for refueling before the flooding. While the owners are losing $1 million per day, since June 6, the radiological risks have been minimal. The plant will be off-line, not generating power, but maintained in an emergency standby state until the waters recede. It will also need to be maintained and repaired. (See Nuclear Plant Recovery Being Planned, Josh Funk, AP / Bloomberg).

1. As of midnight July 31, Fort Calhoun has cost the rate-payers $55 Million because it is shut down.
2. Fort Calhoun  is not likely to be brought back online before June 30, 2012, if it is brought back online at all.
3. Fort Calhoun will cost the ratepayers another $385 Million by the end of June, 2012.

On the other hand, solar and wind plants cannot melt-down. They do not burn fuel, which must be mined, processed, transported, managed and secured, or create toxic wastes which must be managed for thousands of years.

The probability of an accident may be low, but the probability of an accident being extremely expensive, if it occurs, is a virtual certainty. This is why the Germans are phasing out nuclear power.

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Bucolic?  Pastoral? Looks that way, but looks can be deceiving.  First of all, there’s Indian Point 1. Then there’s the water issue.  Other issues are waste and national security.

Operating Modalities, Copyright, (c), 2011 L. J. Furman

Indian Point 1

• Brought online in August, 1962.
• Shutdown in October, 1974.
• Spent fuel is stored on site.
• Scheduled to be closed in 2026.
• Operated 13 years.
• “Zombie” 52 years.

Talk about externalities! “Zombie” since ’74 and scheduled as such for another 25 years, total of 52 years. NRC.  What does it cost to maintain and manage as a “zombie?” And who pays? The owners or the taxpayers?  And did the plant produce so much power in the 12 years of operation that it will make a profit after 52 years of being managed and serviced?

Indian Point 2

• Rated Thermal Power: 3216 MW
• Net Electrical Rating: 1032 MW
• Water Requirements: 840,000 gallons per minute

Indian Point 3

• Rated Thermal Power: 3188 MW
• Net Electrical Rating: 1051MW
• Water Requirements: 840,000 gallons per minute

(source: Entergy / Indian Point website)

Summary - Indian Point is a 2.083 GW complex. Replacing it with new nuclear would cost about $12 to $18 billion, plus the cost of fuel, security, and the costs of interest during the 8 to 10 years of construction. Replacing it with solar would require about 2 million PV solar panels, at a cost of $8 to $12 billion, or 570 wind turbines at a cost of $4 to $6 billion. 2.0 gw of wind and solar do not require 1,680,000 gallons per minute of cooling water, or even 1.0 gallons per minute. Solar and wind do not require fuel and do not produce waste. Nor do they present national security challenges.

Energy Alternatives

• 2 Gigawatts
• Modality                  Nuclear         Solar              Wind
• Cost (billions)       $12 to $18   $8 to $12     $4 to $6
• Fuel                           Yes                  No                   No
• Waste                        Yes                  No                   No
• Security Hole        Huge               No                   No

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The Newark Star Ledger reported (here and here) that Public Service Electric and Gas, PSE&G, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, is installing a  2,700-ton chiller the University of Medicine and Dentristy of New Jersey, UMDNJ. This an $11.4 million investment in negawatts. The Star Ledger reported that UMDNJ will save $1.3 million per year on energy costs.What’s the payback? An $11.4 million investment will save $1.3 million per year. That means the system will pay for itself within 9 years, assuming the price of energy remains constant.  I think it’s a much more reasonable to assume that the price of energy will go up, so the payback will be higher and the system will pay for itself sooner.

The system will work long after it is paid for. It will save $13 Million over the next 10 years and $26 Million over the next 20 years – assuming electricity costs are constant.  Assuming electricity costs increase an average of 5% per year, this will save $16.35 Million over the next 10 years, and $42.99 over the next 20 years.

• Projected Savings of $11.4 Million investment.
• After 1 Year: $1.3 Million, a return on investment of 11.4% in one year.
• After 5 Years: Save $7.18 Million, for a total ROI of 63%, assuming a 5% annual increases in cost of energy.
• After 10 Years:  Save $16.35 M; total ROI of 143.4%).
• After 15 Years: Save $28.05 M; total ROI of (246%)
• After 20 Years: Save $42.99 M; total ROI of 377%).

We have Governor Corzine to thank. as well as Governors Whitman, McGreevey, Codey, and Christie.

More on the PSE&G Green Solutions is here.

UMDNJ will pay $2.7 million over the next three years. PSE&G’s Hospital Efficiency Program will fund the $8.7 million balance.

Back in March, 2009, Jon Corzine, then-Governor of New Jersey, signed a package of renewable energy bills (here).

1. People may install solar energy systems and wind turbines on industrial properties 20 acres or larger.
2. Developers must offer home buyers a solar energy option, on developments with 25 or more units, including single family homes and condos.
3. The Board of Public Utilities may give grants for energy efficiency programs.

At a press conference in March, ’09, Corzine said the new laws further New Jersey’s efforts to protect the environment, reduce dependence on foreign oil and, “a cleaner New Jersey means a better New Jersey, and an even more attractive place for people to live, work, run a business and raise a family.”

When he did this he acted on policies set in place by the BPU under Gov. McGreevey and continued by Acting Gov. Codey. McGreevey, in turn, was carrying the ball thrown by Gov. Whitman.  Popular Logistics hopes that Gov. Christie continues to carry this ball.

Back in 2009, Senate Environment Committee chair Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, said developing clean energy sources will help on a number of levels, including global warming, energy sustainability, and reducing overall pollution. “We should be doing everything in government to foster carbonless energy sources.”

Assembly Republicans, however, called the first two laws “an intrusion on private or municipal rule.”

“I just don’t believe the state should be using a broad brush approach to locating these wind turbines in all industrial zones,” Assemblyman Vincent Polistina (R-Atlantic) said. “Municipalities should have the right to zone where they see fit.” Polistina should realize that this gives energy entrepreneurs the right to install wind turbines on (moderately large) properties, but not the obligation to do so.

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris) said if homeowners “wanted to install solar energy or energy saving devices into their homes they could do that on their own without Trenton telling them to discuss the matter.”  This may be the case, however, the economics logistics and financial ramifications of solar energy remain largely unknown. Again, home buyers have the right to a solar energy system. They are forced to buy one.

This is a silly argument. The first and second laws allow people to build wind and solar. They do not, however, compel people to do so.

They do prohibit people from taking a “NIMBY A NIYBYE – BANANA!” (“Not in My Backyard And Not In Your Backyard Either – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”) approach and preventing their neighbors from exercising their right to invest in clean, renewable, sustainable energy.
We may have the right to be stupid, short-sighted, ignorant of science, and in denial about things scientists tell us their data indicate. However, we elect representatives to various houses in the hope and expectation that they are not stupid, short-sighted, ignorant, and in denial.

Asking a nuclear engineering professor “Is radiation bad?” is like asking Charlie Sheen “Is cocaine bad?”

On “Morning Edition” today, 3/30/11, Renee Montagne did just that when she interviewed Professor Peter Caracappa, a member of the faculty of the nuclear engineering department of RPI (Interview / nuclear engineering at RPI). As is typically the case, what was left out of the conversation could have been more interesting than what was in the conversation. My questions for Professor Caracappa are below:

1. According to Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, there were 715 nuclear engineering graduates in the US in 2009.  B.S.: 395, M.S.233, PhD: 87 (Press Release / ORISE Report). Is this enough young and good nuclear engineers to design, build and manage a new fleet of reactors?
2. How much has background radiation increased since the 1940′s, when we started doing nuclear weapons testing?
3. We burn a lot of coal each day. When coal is mined, processed, and burned we release radon, uranium, and thorium into the biosphere. Since we are careful to manage the radioactive particles in nuclear power plant waste, shouldn’t we be careful to manage the radioactive particles in coal?
4. What are the costs of managing radioactive wastes? And how do we pay those costs? Are they factored into the price of electricity from nuclear power or are they paid by the taxpayer? And if paid by the taxpayer in the budgets of the DoE, NRC, and state and local government agencies, what would they amount to if added to the cost of electricity? This should be fairly easy to calculate we know the output of any given nuclear power plant. We take the output, say 20 gigawatt hours, which is 20 million kwh, and divide that into the costs of regulation for that plant, which could be say $2 million. The result, if I did the math correctly, is $0.10 per kwh. That’s not much – what can you buy for a dime in the U. S. today? Penny candy? But that $0.10 increases the cost of the electricity dramatically – by about 100%.

My final question:

Wind and water turbines, geothermal systems, and photovoltaic solar modules produce power without burning fuel. While there are resource footprints in the manufacture, installation, and maintenance of these facilities, there are no mines, no wells, no wastes to manage in their ongoing operation.  Shouldn’t we be asking “How do we get utility scale base load power from wind and sun?” Shouldn’t we be figuring out “How to shift from a fuel-based energy paradigm to a sustainable paradigm?”

Smoke from nuclear plant. (C) Reuters

The men and women who design, build, and work at nuclear power plants are bright, dedicated people who work hard so that when we flip a switch the power flows, so we can use our computers, watch our tvs, refrigerate our food, microwave our dinners and our popcorn, heat, cool, and vacuum our homes, and jam on our electric pianos and electric guitars when we want to. The drive, dedication and service of the engineers at Fukushima is heroic.

Under normal conditions, nuclear power emits less pollutants than coal, and the waste from nuclear power is regulated. The wastes from coal are not.

Yet, radioactive materials are an intrinsic property of nuclear power; consequently meltdown and disaster are inherent dangers. The disasters at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Fukushima Diaini, and Onagawa, while not predictable, were not unexpected. We’ve seen Chernobyl in ’86, Three Mile Island in ’79. We’ve had fires at Brown’s Ferry. We have had, and continue to have leaks of radioactive material at Oyster Creek, Indian Point, Vermont Yankee, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and every other nuclear facility in the United States, Japan, France, and I am sure, the rest of the world.

And we learned what? To ‘harden’ the plants? To spare no expense in a fanatical devotion to safety and maintenance?

No. To cut corners and to defer maintenance. To extend to 60 years the life of plants designed to last 40 years.

I drive an 11 year old car with 158,000 miles under it’s engine. I’m on my third set of tires. I change the oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles, or 4 months or 4,000 miles when I’m busy and stressed. When I hold off on an oil change to 4 months or 4,000 miles, I allow negligible damage to the engine and decrease performance. if I tried to stretch it to 2 years or 30,000 miles between oil changes I would destroy the engine. I can probably get another 10 years and another 125,000 miles out of the car if I baby it. But I don’t know if I could drive it 60 years and 1.2 million miles. Yet this is how we attempt to manage our nuclear power plants.

The U.S. says people should not go within 50 miles of Fukushima. That’s a circular area of approximately 7,850 square miles. Indian Point, on the east bank of the Hudson River, is located 35 miles from Manhattan. It was built to withstand a 6.0 earthquake and was built along the Ramapo earthquake fault. Japanese authorities now tell us their killer quake was 9.0. The U. S. Geological Survey reported 154 aftershocks of 5.0 or greater and 27 aftershocks measuring 6.0 or greater in Japan.  Could Indian Point withstand an earthquake that measures 9.0 with 154 aftershocks of 5.0 or greater, 27 measuring 6.0 or greater – in a week? Japan moved 8 feet to the east. If Indian Point moves 8 feet to the west it will be swimming.

We should, with all deliberate speed, decommission every nuclear reactor and replace them with wind, solar, geothermal, other renewable, sustainable technologies, and the “negawatt” virtual-reactors of efficiency.

Like Chernobyl # 4, We should entomb Fukushima Dai-ichi in a sarcophagus the size of the Pyramids. And rather than Yucca Mountain, we should very politely ask the Japanese to transform Fukushima Dai-ichi into a nuclear waste repository for the future.

The question is not:

“Can we meet our needs with renewable, sustainable energy systems?”

but rather it is

“How can we meet our needs with renewable, sustainable energy systems?”

Latestin a series on the economics, ecological economics, finance, logistics, and systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.

Index to the series

1. Earthquake, Tsunami and Energy Policy, March 11-13, 2011. Here.
2. After Fukushima, Wall Street Bearish on Nuclear Power. March 14, 2011. Here.
3. Fukushima: Worse than Chernobyl? Here.
4. Fukushima: GE Mark 1: Unsustainable by Design. Here
5. Is Fukushima Dai-icha worse than Chernobyl? Here.
6. Nuclear Power: What Future? Here.