What KQED and FAIR aren't fair to

Straight talk.  I posted this to KQED's discussion of the Diablo Canyon shutdown last night:

But as more renewable energy comes online, running renewables, natural gas and other power sources all together sometimes creates more power than the state needs. At those times, the California ISO has to switch off solar farms to avoid overloading the grid.

Retiring Diablo Canyon could help with that problem.

So instead of turning down some unreliable generators which can only generate at peak for maybe 3-4 hours a day (and never at the peak demand hours in the evening), they propose to kill an emissions-free generator which runs at peak 24/7.

Why isn't the word "insane" applied to these people?  Or, if denial of the threat of climate change is a crime, the word "criminal"?

The nuclear plant is designed to run at a steady, constant level. Nuclear advocates have argued that the state needs this kind of “baseload” power. Others say shutting down Diablo could actually improve grid management.

“It will reduce the need to curtail our solar power plants,” said Cavanagh.

It's hard to say what's nuttier here:  that the logic of curtailment is totally backwards, or that nobody dares to say that it's totally backwards.  It's as if California's government and media are run by paranoid schizophrenics who freak out over the potential of some tiny radiation exposure from a nuclear power plant, and then relieve their tension at a natural hot-spring spa where the waters and air are full of radon and radium... which come from decaying uranium.

In a California that was not ruled by the insane, the state would be building out its entire base-load to be carbon free.  Diablo Canyon would be pushed to renew its licenses to the 2040's and beyond.  San Onofre would be repaired and running.  Rancho Seco would still be on-line, and Bodega Bay would be one of the jewels of California's GHG-free generation portfolio.  Generators which cannot run when needed would take a back seat to those which can, and all air emissions would be taxed either internally (via preferences and feebates) or explicitly.

Sadly, nothing about California's energy priorities is sane.  Not one thing.

And this comment in reply to TeeJae at FAIR a couple days ago:

Your attempt to counter studies you’ve never seen is not only intellectually dishonest, it’s laughable.

I've seen Jacobson's "work".  I could tell it was fraudulent from the ridiculous level of precision it specified.  His "Solutions Project" specifies that Washingtion state could power itself with 0.5% wave devices, 0.3% tidal turbines, and 35% onshore wind.  Really, he can specify these things to a tenth of a percent?  And he can rely on on-shore wind for more than a third of total generation, when the wind over the entire BPA area can go AWOL for almost 2 weeks at a time?

Have you looked at the personnel at The Solutions Project?  There are a bunch of "directors" and a "producer", but not one engineer or scientist on the staff.  It is staffed like an ad agency, which it is.  Its product is not science; it cannot be.

You ruinable religionistas need to be forced to live according to your own dogmas until you either prove them workable or die trying.  If I didn't have you bums insisting that I MUST NOT BE ALLOWED NUCLEAR POWER, I'd be just fine year-round TYVM.

If my desire to protect people and planet makes me a “sorry excuse for a human being” in your eyes

Protect people and the planet from WHAT?  You're certainly not protecting either from climate change or air pollution; if you were, you'd be steadfastly opposed to the Energiewende and the shared German/Danish idiocy of burning coal to make up for the vagaries of wind.

If you wanted to protect people from air pollution, you'd look at the success stories.  Toronto hasn't had a smog action day in some time.  Not coincidentally, Ontario shut down its Nanticoke and Thunder Bay coal-fired power plants.  This was made possible by the restart of nuclear reactors at Bruce Point.  Are you so deluded that you think this is NOT protecting people and the planet?

what does your desire to protect corporate profits say about you?

You are so stupid.  I tell you how much corporate profit is destroyed by the cheapness of nuclear fuel, and you accuse me of wanting to protect those profits.  Were you born that dumb, or did you have to study?

Bringing fossil fuels into the discussion is another tell-tale sign of a pro-nuclear shill. Despite your best straw-man efforts, fossil fuels are irrelevant to this topic.

Fossil fuels are irrelevant to the health of the planet?  WTF?!

You're either a climate denialist or insane.  It's impossible to tell which via this medium, but the total logical disconnects in your statements indicate one or the other.

Neither of these comments will see the light of day under the censorship regime of these two "press" outlets.

This country, and especially its media, need a long trip on the Straight-Talk Express.

Labels: censorship, media

  ¶ 6/30/2016 04:15:00 PM