Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
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It may take something like having Exelon close down Oyster Creek and then people watching the electric bills jump to combat this idiocy --- trouble is, it will take a long time for the lesson to sink in.
Upshot: There is not now, nor will there be in the immediate future, any excess gas capacity to replace IPEC's generation.
It took over 12 years to install the vastly reduced Millennium pipeline, and there are no plans for any new pipes.
Therefore any talk about replacing IPEC with gas, is purest naive nonsense.
We need not compute anything, to put the lie to Matthiessen's pipe dream.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11666&page=R1
Their conclusion?
"While the committee is optimistic that technical solutions do exist for the replacement of Indian Point, it is considerably less confident that the necessary political, regulatory, financial, and institutional mechanisms are in place to facilitate the timely implementation of these replacement options. The importance of this issue cannot be overstated in developing options for maintaining a reliable electric energy supply for the New York City metropolitan area."
In other words, New York City is in deep do-do (e.g., blackouts) without Indian Point.
The fact is, eliminating IP would cause intense hardship on New Yorkers and provide nothing in environmental benefit - in fact, it would inflict more harm. Can we stick to the facts and recognize our real adversary - anti-nukes - and not merely our political ones?
"Teabgger" is it? Since when did NEI Nuclear Notes become a porn blog? We don't need that kind of Democratic Underground-style filthy language here. Stick to the subject? How about starting with not using gutter language?
The term also has non-obscene definitions. Some of the Tea Party groups have referred to themselves using this term.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/04/15/snapshots-of-teabaggers
Your choosing to default to the obscene definition is not my fault or concern. Do you also complain on the ESPN web site every time they mention balls?
This is hilarious coming from DocForesight, as this is perhaps the only thread on this blog he's commented on that he HASN'T tried to turn into an anti-Obama discussion.
Oh, stop it. Just stop it. Don't try to make jerks out of us. We knew what you meant, and you did, too. So just stop it.
If you wanted to refer to the anti-tax increase, anti-big government, anti-government takeover protesters, there were other terms you could have used. But you chose a term that had the most obscene connotations. Like I said, we don't need that DU-style filth here.
We can "thank" people like Rachel Maddow for the spread of the "teabagger" smear. The Tea Party Patriots could hardly be convicted of conjuring that moniker to their movement. And I'd be willing to bet that a high percentage of them are strong proponents of nuclear power plants.