The Golden State's War on Itself

Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by gaius on Monday August 09, 2010 @04:35PM (#1589283)

California's problem is that they regulated retail but not wholesale electricity and banned the construction of new powerplants. Basic supply and demand, there's less so it costs more. So the local electricity companies have to buy supplies from out of state and can't pass on the cost, creating deep structural problems.

About California's only hope is mass nuke building before it's too late.

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by anigbrowl on Monday August 09, 2010 @05:33PM (#1589482)

mass nuke building before it's too late

I'm pro nuclear power in general, but evidence suggests it's not a very good fit for California. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/ http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by pjscott on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:35PM (#1590032)

It's definitely possible to make nuclear plants earthquake-proof, so long as you choose a site that isn't located directly on top of a major fault like or something. The French EPR, for example, comes this way standard. Or if you want to look at really radical solutions, consider floating reactors like the ones Russia is working on:

http://finger-tree.blogspot.com/2009/11/floating-nuclear-pla...

Earthquakes are just another engineering challenge, and one that nuclear engineers have been dealing with successfully for decades now.

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by jbooth on Monday August 09, 2010 @11:21PM (#1590335)

Why on earth would we ever try to build a nuclear plant anywhere near any general area that's prone to earthquakes? There's plenty of other real estate available for any we decide to build.

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by pjscott on Thursday August 12, 2010 @01:18AM (#1597292)

You might live on an earthquake-prone island nation like Japan. Or the easiest access to cooling water may be in someplace with an earthquake risk.

Personally, I think that probably the thing to do is work on power lines that can efficiently carry vast amounts of power long distances, and build nuke plants in places that are less crazy politically than California. Reduced earthquake likelihood would be a very nice side-benefit.

(I know this thread is dead, but I figured you should get an answer anyway.)

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by jbooth on Monday August 09, 2010 @06:26PM (#1589655)

Thank you so much for posting this comment. I love watching ideologically-picked solutions smash into the unyielding fabric of reality.

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by pjscott on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:39PM (#1590041)

Be careful that you don't mistake passion for dogmatism. I have seen a few pro-nukes who treat it as a happy death spiral, but they seem to be the exception.

(Definition of happy death spiral: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ln/resist_the_happy_death_spiral/ . Does anybody have a more common synonym for this that wouldn't require explanation? Links are a little awkward on HN.)

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Re:The Golden State's War on Itself by jbooth on Monday August 09, 2010 @11:20PM (#1590330)

I was pro-nuke and I'm still more pro-nuke than I am pro-coal.

I just re-evaluated my risk tolerance in the wake of this whole gulf thing. Anyways happy death spiral is a great way to put it -- I kind of view my past feelings about it through that lens.

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