End of Nuke Power in CA, America

John Seiler:

One solution to California’s need for electricity would have been to construct more nuclear power plants. Doing so also would have helped the state meet the requirements of AB 32 to reduce greenhouse gases. Nuke plants don’ t produce any gases.

Although nuclear plants are cheap and efficient, the safety issue has arisen big time with the explosion at one nuke plant in Japan after its earthquake; two others might be at risk.

Previously, the two major crises involving civilian nuclear power were, first, at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It was a partial core meltdown, which had limited health effects.

Second was the 1986 Chernobyl explosion in the Soviet Union, which killed an estimated 4,000 people and spewed radioactivity over hundreds of thousands of people in what now is Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. But Chernobyl was the result of crummy socialist technology in the final days of communism in the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the Chernobyl blast hastened the Soviet Union’s demise by displaying to the world, in deadly fashion, that socialism means total incompetence and death. (Much as Obamacare would do if fully imposed in America; Obamacare is a health-care Chernobyl.)

By contrast, Japan is a modern, capitalist nation highly efficient in making machines, especially nuclear power. Yet they couldn’t make nuke plants to survive earthquakes they knew were coming.

Any chance of reviving nuclear plants in America now is dead, especially in California, where we also have earthquakes. We have two nuke plants here in California, at San Onofre (pictured above) and Diablo Canyon. In the coming days, we’ll be hearing calls to shut them down. It could happen. Doing so would greatly increase the price of electricity in California.

Alternative ways to create electricity — wind, solar, biomass, etc. — produce at most 2 percent of electricity, and usually are economic boondoggles subsidized by taxpayers. AB 32 also retards the production of the most efficient source of electricity in California, clean natural gas.

That will leave importing electricity from nearby states, Canada and Mexico. Which will mean higher costs to California businesses and families.

Lasting working Californian to leave the state, don’t forget to turn off the lights. Actually, never mind. The lights already will be off.

March 12, 2011