Comments on Larry Agran’s Talk on San Onofre

I read Larry Agran’s talk to the packed Irvine City Council meeting on the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).  I want to make comments on some of the statements made there.

First of all he makes the comparison that the plant is hardened for a 7.0, but the San Andreas fault can have an 8.0 earthquake.  I covered that comparison in  the previous post, but will restate it here.  The 7.0 quake they are prepared for is right at the site, and it would produce less than the 0.67 g that they are hardened to.  An 8.0 on the San Andreas fault would only produce a 0.2 g acceleration at the nuclear plant, less than a third of what they are prepared for.

Next, Mr. Agran states that the State of California is developing 8500 megaWatts of solar energy, and that is four times the energy of the SONGS plant with a total of 2200 megaWatts.  What is quoted for solar power is the peak power, and not the average daily and year-round power, which is 1/5 of the peak power, or in this case 1700 megaWatts average. That is only 77% of the yearly energy generated by SONGS.

Later in the talk he called solar power a more reliable energy source.  Of course, while nuclear plants have to operate 24/7 and are base power, solar power doesn’t work at night, and has to be replaced by fossil fuel power.  Also, seasons, time of day, and clouds all cause it to vary, and to keep the power flowing smoothly, natural gas and expensive peaker plants have to run to smooth it out.

Then there are the questions that Larry skipped.  The cost of solar power is very high.  The footprint is very large.  Another question skipped, is that the State of California is providing $2 billion, and the Federal government even more, to build the solar projects to replace polluting coal and natural gas power plants.  They were not built to replace clean nuclear power plants for the concerns of Irvine.  Shouldn’t Irvine and other affected cities refund the State and US governments for redirecting their investments just for Irvine if SONGS is closed?

 

 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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