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Comment by trimbo | Hacker News Reader

Will they accept nuclear reactors though?

If you're going to ban these, then offer a non-fossil-fuel alternative that could work.

Their only remaining nuclear generation station is being closed down early because people in California don't like it regardless of its reliable carbon-free energy [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#Clos...

Weird, I thought that Wikipedia page used to cite the costs of retrofitting Diablo Canyon's cooling to move away from once through water, but I don't see it there anymore. The history of that page shows scars of manipulating the narrative, but I stil didn't find it. Here's a PDF from PG&E that puts the cost at $2.6B:

https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/c...

These days you can buy a lot of solar, wind, and storage for $2.6B, so I'm not sure that closing the reactor is merely "not liking" nuclear. At this point we get more carbon free energy from solar and storage for the same amount of money, so if one is concerned about carbon it makes more sense to chug it down and build newer cheaper infrastructure.

What they are talking about is what is used to condense the steam exiting the main turbine which is the thing that spins the generator. DC uses seawater to run through the condenser and then back out to the sea, warming the water about 20 degrees if I remember correctly. This is why you see most nuclear plants along the coast or lining the Great Lakes.

The only other methods I am aware of are the giant cooling towers people associate with nuclear plants or ponds (more like canals which snake back and forth, see Turkey Point in Florida) which allow the water to cool before reuse.

"The policy approved by the supervisors prohibits utility-oriented renewable energy projects — defined as projects that would mostly serve out-of-town utility customers, rather than local power needs"

Well they don't seem to be banned. And seemingly they would be in favour of renewables for their own use. So disconnect them from the grid, add renewables and battery storage, that would seem to please everyone?

Frankly,this level of selfishness is astounding to me. Me, me, me, only for me, I got mine so screw the rest.

Welcome to every single planning meeting in California politics. And also many other places too, but California enables absolutely tiny groups of people to delay any construction or change.

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