California electric rates are getting ridiculous

[BobR]

Now your are talking about the impossible!

No it doesn't but it does take the one thing that seems to be impossible to get and that is commitment to do something.

[HeyBub]

For those who think the country can run on sunbeams, it's reality-check time.

The amount of solar radiation that falls on the earth's surface is about 745 watts/sq meter. At the equator. At noon. With no clouds.

Assuming you could conjure up a solar convertor (electric, steam, etc.) that's 40% efficient, and adjusting for latitude, 12 hours of darkness, clouds, dust, etc., it would take a solar collector facility the size of the Los Angeles basin (~1200 sq miles) to provide power for the state of California (~50 Gw).

The entire Interstate Highway system is 50,000 miles. Assuming 60' of roadway, that's 568 square miles of concrete, less than half our required solar collector. Imagine the cost to construct such a monster and the expense to maintains something that massive!

On the plus side, everybody in Los Angeles would be in the dark.

[Norminn]

clipped

Which bogeyman is "far more serious" than release of radioactivity into air or water?

[dpb]

That's the point -- there wouldn't be any significant release.

--

[Tony Hwang]

Whoa!

[Erma1ina]

Hmmm.

Tell me: Do you have ANY objective documentation to support your various SPECULATIONS????

I lived in the area at the time and your "recollections/fantasies" do not jibe with mine or with ANY of the public documents -- the link to one of which was provided below -- regarding Rancho Seco.

Pity that REALITY does not support ideologically-driven bias. LOL.

dpb wrote:

[Erma1ina]

No commercial reactor fuel or reprocessed

Where do you get this garbage you're spewing?

PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION for your assertions or STFU.

Checkout:

"NOTE 3. Although the plutonium generated by a commercial nuclear power plant is not technically "weapons grade," it has long been acknowledged that NUCLEAR BOMBS CAN BE AND HAVE BEEN BUILT WITH REACTOR-GRADE PLUTONIUM."

[Erma1ina]

Once again, "dpb" FULL OF IT!

Big Rock Point -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Fort St. Vrain -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Haddam Neck -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Maine Yankee -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Trojan -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Yankee Rowe -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE.

Similarly:

Dresden I -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Humboldt Bay 3 -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Indian Point I -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. LaCrosse -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Millstone I -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Zion 2 -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE. Zion 1 -- Fuel remains stored ON SITE.

For people you are truly interested in the FACTS (not the preconceptions of clowns like "dpb"), check out:

Several of the above reactors have been shut down for more than 3 DECADES and still have fuel stored ON SITE.

[scorpster]

Your doctor's MRI scanning machine is also stored ON-SITE but I don't think any protesters are threatning to rip those out of the hospitals or yank people out from underneath their radiation.

[Erma1ina]

Hmmm.

Another "genius". LOL

MRI (MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING) does NOT involve radioactive materials.

[Erma1ina]

Additionally, any radioactive medical waste is required by federal law to be disposed of in specific designated waste management facilities NOT "on site", i.e. NOT in the physician office or medical facility.

[dpb]

Which would you care for?

The only thing I'm not certain of specifically is the referendum as I already mentioned--the shutdown was after I had moved from the vendor to a consulting firm and had mostly transitioned to working with fossil utilities rather than nuclear.

The rest I know from having worked for the reactor vendor w/ the utility including design and startup physics testing.

--

[Erma1ina]

And I did mathematical modelling of reactors and particle detectors. SO WHAT?

Provide links to objective materials that support you silly opinions.

[dpb]

...

My recollection on the referendum portion appears correct as I thought...

[Erma1ina]

And, by the way, I DOUBT that you, "dpb" have any more technical or scientific expertise than a clerk.

[scorpster]

I meant to say CT, Computed Tomography, which involves radiation.

A neonatal abdominal CT effective dose is 20 mSv.

Most nuclear waste has much lower surface dose rate than a CT scan!

...and the waste is kept very carefully contained, away from the public.

Yet I don't see any anti-nuclear demonstrators at the hospitals.

Anti-nuclear extremists try to frighten the general public. Scare tactics to keep us dependent on expensive polluting coal and fossil fuels.

[Erma1ina]

I see that "dpb", like a true weasel, omitted the pertinent section of my message (including the "link" I mentioned. Here's the omitted section:

--- Start of section ---

Oh I don't think California "electric utilities fail to take advantage of clean nuclear power." or that "If we had nuclear power we'd only be paying a fraction of the price and it would be good for the environment!!"

Think: "R A N C H O S E C O" and check out:

Here are some excerpts:

Regarding the specific issue of "Rancho Seco":

"If the investor-owned utilities will not build new nuclear plants, the other possibilities are municipally-owned utilities and independent generators. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which shut down its Rancho Seco nuclear plant in 1989 due to high costs and chronically poor performance, is unlikely to want to go down that road again."

--- End of secti>

[scorpster]

Erma1ina have you mathematically modeled the effect on our lungs from breathing in toxic fossil fuel particulates because we fail to leverage clean and plentiful nuclear power?

[Erma1ina]

So what?

As I explained (and you conveniently omitted quoting), radioactive medical waste is REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW TO BE DISPOSED OF IN SPECIFIC DESIGNATED FACITIES, NOT ON SITE of the medical facility.

[Erma1ina]

No.

But I may to model the effect of "idiots attempting to change the subject when out of their depths in a debate"

On the other hand, that is, as they say, "intuitively obvious". LOL.