🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jeffrey Siegal" <jbs@quiotix.com> wrote in message
news:3A67FD56.EB3EC595@quiotix.com...
> Michael Dix wrote:
> > I guess
> > it was cheap for a while, but to me it would make more sense to
> > depend on heavy oil, coal, and especially the N-word for the
> > bulk of our power generation.
>
> Cost is not the significant factor.  The ability to use oil or coal in
> California has been essentially eliminated to meet environmental
> requirements.  And the N-word, well, that's just a bad word.

Now that somebody has picked up on the n-word -- let's  say it:
nuclear power!  It comes in two flavors, fission and fusion, of which
so far only fission is available to make your wheels go around and
electrons flow--but that accounts for ~20% of your current
electric load.

it seems from here that you would do well to consider allowing
the utilities to build a couple more such power plants, increasing
the nuclear share of your projected load to 30%, and set aside
a 36 square mile township of public domain land in your high
desert--where you have to fertilize AND irrigate to raise a fuss,
(much less a sheep!) as a National spent nuclear fuel repository.
Nevada's senators have said they don't want to have one of
those in their back yard, even though they have as much land
of the same general description and value as you do.  But
you Californians are the ones who need the power to keep
your businesses, going, much less your lifestyles.  You will
also have to back off your environmebntal restrictions
somewhat.  It's ridiculous to reject a possible site for
a nuclear power plant with an estimated life span of
less than 50 years because it's within a mile of a silent fault
that might slip 'sometime in the next 1 million years.
[Almost as silly as your Sierra Club's reversing itself on
the idea of planting aeroturbine turbines in windy spots
'because an endangered California Condor -of which
there aren't a hundred in the world--might get entangled
with it!]

The fi-word can only be a palliative, of course, because
after <50 years in service, a fission power plant will get
too hot to maintain, and (if I understand correctly)
irradiation effects will change the strength of the materials
of which it is built.  To carry on from that point, you will
need further serious work on the fu-word: Fusion.   It
isn't available for power production now, and may not
be su8itable when and if it is developed--but eventually,
fusion, aeroturbines and biomass are going to stand
between you (and the rest of us) and using candles to
light up the night and horses to move our carriages.
<Much less lift satellites into the sky to propagate the
output of Hollywood!>  Power from biomass, of course,
will require thousands of foresters to invade Smokey
Bear's domain and chop down trees to feed the furnaces;
Aeroturbines and geothermal have special siting
requirements, but we don't yet know the problems  that
will beset fission pwoer plants when developed.

But you Californians will have to permit the development
of these solutions to your  present discontents, AND
PAY FOR THEM!  You may prefer to make those
payments via your State personal income tax, as
seems to be what you currently want to do, but
if you dance, you have to pay the piper.  If you
notoriously starve him to death, or drive him
bankrupt, it gets *very* difficult to recruit a new
one.
    Live long and prosper
            Sid Cochran
            Tyler, Texas