Which is more cost effective, better for our health and capable of sustaining the planet?
(Hint: It looks prettier too!)
Nuclear Power
Here we'll gift the facts, plain and simple. We'll expose some of the incommunicable costs for nuclear power, elaborate the financial incentives for solar as they are today, and we'll observe where the time to come appears to be headed.
The vigor Bill that was recently passed by Congress and signed by President Bush contains a billion appropriation for renewable vigor which includes solar, wind, bio-mass, geothermal, hydro power and fuel cells.
In the same bill, billion is appropriated for guaranteed loans to corporations to build a nuclear power plant.
Imagine what the solar commerce in the U.S. Could perform with billion now ... Or even billion. What has been complete in the U.S. Solar commerce up until now?
New Jersey's Supercharged Solar Future
The Nj solar commerce has seen explosive growth over the past five years due to the biggest renewable vigor rebate incentive in the United States, the Nj buyer On-Site Renewable vigor (Core) rebate. Historically, the rebates have amounted to 40-70 percent of the installed cost of the system. Depending on a customer's capability to take advantage of tax incentives, the payback range is four to nine years. There has been a growth spurt in Nj's solar commerce due to these aggressive rebates, but not without 'growing pains.'
Currently, the money for the Core rebate schedule comes through a tariff expensed in statewide utility bills called a 'societal benefits charge.' The Sbc provides a yearly fixed funds to fund the rebates.
The amazing interest in the core rebate has caused a waiting list (queue) to be created, and the waiting time for rebate approval is currently 12-18 months. Essentially, the growth of the solar commerce has led to slowdowns and market uncertainties.
After more than a year of collective discussions about how to restructure New Jersey's solar market, the state's Board of collective Utilities (Bpu) unanimously approved the transition of the Core schedule from an upfront rebate principles to a commodity market based on Solar Renewable vigor toll (Srecs). They still plan to keep a rebate in place for residential systems until 2012 which could result in a windfall for these solar customers.
Renewable vigor toll (Recs), also known as Green Tags, are tradable environmental commodities that characterize the 'clean aspect' of onemegawatt-hour (Mwh) of electricity generated from renewable energy. These certificates can be sold and traded and the owner of the Rec can claim to have purchased renewable energy. Recs put a monetary value on carbon-neutral renewable vigor by providing financial incentive for electricity generated from renewable sources. A solar generator is issued one Rec for every 1,000 kwh of electricity it produces. The electricity is fed into the electrical grid or used on-site, and the accompanying Rec can then be sold on the open market.
In Nj, electricity suppliers are legally required to produce a percentage of renewable energy, buy the Srecs, or pay a Solar Alternative compliancy payment (Sacp). Solar principles owners earn Srecs for solar electricity production, which are registered and traded among electricity suppliers and other buyers within an established infrastructure.
There are three ways that have been used to help fund renewable vigor worldwide. 1) Rebate - the authorities reimbursement part of the cost of installation; 2) Feed-in tariff - the electricity utility buys Pv electricity from principles owners at a guaranteed price set well above current prices; 3) Renewable vigor toll - creating a commodity out of the carbon-neutral aspect of the vigor production.
Each method has its subtle pros/cons, and often the three are used in some combination. In Nj, we have rebates and Recs. Engaging forward, they are scheduled to have a rebate for homeowners and small market systems, and Recs for over 10kw commercial.
In Germany, they have a feed-in tariff that was 3X higher than end-user price, and 8X higher than 'wholesale.' California has the 'California Solar Initiative,' offering a choice of rebate feed-in tariff for small and medium systems, and a feed-in tariff for large systems. The small-system feed-in tariff is far less than Germany's.
Under the time to come Nj Office of Clean vigor plan, the Bpu essentially doubled the price of the Sacp in an attempt to phase out the core rebate program. With the plan, solar owners will receive around 00 a year in cash and electricity for every kilowatt installed for a 15-year period. This means the solar principles will pay itself off in six to nine years depending on production and market conditions.
"Because of delays in application approvals linked with the popularity of upfront rebates, the Bpu has decided the Srec-only principles is the best way to ensure rapid adoption of solar in New Jersey," said Mike Winka, director of the Bpu's Office of Clean Energy. "And because the principles is not tied to a budget, there will be no opportunity that the funds will run out or that it will be diverted to other program."
New Jersey's collective assistance electric and Gas enterprise (Pse&G) announced hold for the plan. In April, the enterprise is proposing to spend up to 0 million to help finance the premise of solar systems for its customers. Under its proposal, Pse&G's loans would be repaid with Srecs. Other associates may soon enter the Nj market, financing solar installations via Srec money as a certify for their investment.
"In making today's decision on the time to come of solar in New Jersey, we are taking steps to align solar capacity and costs to be consistent with the priorities of the governor's vigor vision," said Bpu President Jeanne M. Fox. "We believe this strategy will spur both incommunicable and collective speculation in New Jersey's solar market."
For more information, email Angus McDougald at angusmcdougald@hotmail.com
It Doesn't Add Up
Photovoltaic cells are 1/50th their price in the 1970s.
Wind vigor is 80 percent economy than it was 15 years ago.
Nuclear energy, once promoted as the cheap vigor source of the future, is now the most costly market vigor choice in the United States.
Source : Financial Review, June 21, 1996. Shut Down or Melt Down?
Oyster Creek Radiation
Containment wall Likely
to Fail in Serious Accident
The owner of the Oyster Creek nuclear generating plant in Lacey, Nj, wants to renew its operating license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Nrc), for other 20 years. It is the oldest operating plant in the nation.
According to AmerGen, the owner of the nuclear plant, a steel and concrete containment principles at Oyster Creek that surrounds the reactor core and its fuel, has a 74 percent opportunity of failing if there is a serious crisis to the core or the fuel.
Over the years, corrosion and leaks in the cooling principles have been found, repaired, found again. At press time, other leak was found and hadn't yet been repaired at Oyster Creek.
The Nrc concurred with AmerGen that "increased inspections will result in added radiation exposure to personnel complicated in the inspections," as stated in the license reparation application, and gave the green light to amble with renewal, along with a reduced inspection schedule.
It's a key step toward the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's arrival decision on whether to relicense the plant to operate beyond 2009.
Inspections by the Nrc are down sharply. In 1990, each reactor was inspected an average of 4,700 man-hours. In 2002, that estimate was 3,100 hours - a decline of about one-third.
Coalition Appeals
Ruling On Contention
A coalition of six citizens organizations got a landmark hearing by the Atomic security Licensing Board (Aslb) on September 24, 2007, to chronicle security contentions about Oyster Creek's dry well, which is a 100-foot-tall round containment shell.
On December 18, the Aslb rejected the contention by the coalition. The federal Atomic security and Licensing Board issued a ruling that checking the steel dry-well liner around the reactor every four years "is sufficiently frequent to ensure an sufficient security margin will be maintained."
The coalition has just filed an request for retrial to Aslb's ruling. In its 30-page appeal, filed January 15, 2008, it states that the sandbed region at the bottom of the freestanding part of the shell is not being monitored enough. The request for retrial questions whether the Aslb failed to think primary testimony and other issues with regard to compliance.
Corrosion of the steel shell cased in concrete was discovered in the 1990s, and was partly due to excessive moisture. In AmerGen's own re-licensing application, they state that the shell has a 75 percent opportunity of leaking radiation while a meltdown.
AmerGen then coated the outside of the corroded areas with an epoxy.
The coalition maintains in its request for retrial that the sandbed region's thickness monitoring, proposed by the plant's owner, AmerGen, will not ensure the security of the premise throughout its time to come operation.
The coalition includes the Nuclear information and reserved supply assistance (Nirs); Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch; Nj collective Interest research Group; Grandmothers, Mothers and More for vigor Safety; The Sierra Club; and the Nj Environmental Federation.
The plant's current license will expire in April 2009. According to Neil Sheehan a spokesman for the Nrc, the plant could continue to operate beyond its license if legal challenges were still being reviewed.
A presidentially appointed commission that oversees the Nrc will settle on the appeal.
More concerns with Oyster Creek include: the ineffective and impossible evacuation plan; the plant's vulnerability to terrorism, corrosion of the dry well liner; millions of fish being killed by the once-through cooling system; and the warehouse of the growing radioactive spent fuel nuclear waste being dumped less than 400 feet from Route 9. All the evidence shows that Ocngs is not a safe, clean, reliable source of power.
"Get Off The Fence"
"Oyster Creek is not worth the risk," states Edith Gbur, president of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch. She recently spoke to the Ocean County Board of Freeholders about the issues. "It is time for the Freeholders to get off the fence and take a position on conclusion the nuclear plant at Oyster Creek. This plant has a long history of health, safety, security and environmental problems and over 15 municipalities in New Jersey have called for its shutdown," Gbur told them.
The Freeholders have dodged the issue for eight years, "by passing the buck" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the department to settle the fate of Oyster Creek, said Gbur.
"We're not passing the buck. The Nrc will make the decision. We've tried to hold their feet to the fire," said Freeholder John P. Kelly.
Local governing bodies in 15 communities voted to oppose the relicensing.
Oyster Creek's excessive Radiation & High Cancer Rates Nearby
Oyster Creek is among the largest emitters of airborne and waterborne radioactivity of any U.S. Reactor, According to a record from the Radiation and collective health scheme (Rphp), a nonprofit educational and scientific organization. Oyster Creek has emitted five times the estimate of radiation than the Three-Mile Island Nuclear Plant while its 1979 meltdown According to Rphp.
Ocean County is about 20 percent above the U.S. average for cancer and has the top cancer incidence rate of any New Jersey county, According to Nj health department statistics.
"We believe it is the accountability of the Board of Freeholders to research the source of these rising cancer rates, as they are required to 'act in concert to safe the health and welfare of its citizens' as stated on page 6 of the Ocean County Directory," said Gbur.
Even the Nrc, in their 2006 environmental impact statement, noted Oyster Creek plant has been dumping radioactive waste materials and is the worst polluter of Barnegat Bay.
According to the Tooth Fairy Study conducted by Rphp, average Strontium-90 in over 500 New Jersey baby teeth doubled since the late 1980s. Strontium 90 comes from nuclear radiation.
"The good news is, if similar changes in cancer rates near the [closed] Rancho Seco, Ca reactor occurred, conclusion Oyster Creek could mean 4810 fewer local cancer deaths over 20 years," says Joseph Magnano, administrative director of Rphp (see http://www.radiation.org).
In 1999, the Freeholders said they were implicated and encouraged meetings on the Tooth Fairy Project, when Alec Baldwin spoke at Ocean County College on the links between the childhood cancer cluster in Toms River and Strontium 90 emissions from Oyster Creek, According to Gbur.
Alec Baldwin will return to speak at a community dialogue sponsored by the League of Women Voters at 6:30 pm on February 20th at the Ocean County Library's Toms River field on Washington Street.
Study Finds Increased Child Cancer Near Nuclear Plants
Children living near nuclear power plants have a significantly higher risk of developing leukemia and other forms of cancer, According to a German study reported in December of 2007.
"Our study confirmed that in Germany a relationship has been observed between the length of a domicile to the nearest nuclear power plant, and the risk of developing cancer, such as leukemia, before the fifth birthday," Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted the record as saying.
The study was done by the University of Mainz for Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection. The researchers found that cancer incidences in children under 5 years of age growth with proximity to reactor sites. Within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius of the reactors, 77 cases of child cancer, 37 of which were leukemia, were registered for the observe period 1980 to 2003. On a statistical average, 48 cases of cancer with 17 cases of leukemia would be expected.
The study deals exclusively with the statistical relationship between cancer incidences and the length of the place of living from the nuclear power plant site.
Some experts familiar with the study believe the data showed there was an increased cancer risk for children living within 50 kilometers of a reactor.
Germany plans to prematurely shut down all of its nuclear power plants by the early 2020s.
Challenging Nuclear Renaissance
Now that the new vigor Bill provides billion in guaranteed loans for new nuclear plants, some other associates have expressed interest in whether increasing existing plants around the country or building new facilities, together with Chicago-based Exelon. Federal regulators expect to process applications for about 30 new reactors along the East Coast and in the Southeast in arrival years.
Anti-nuclear activists are ready to challenge the "so-called nuclear renaissance" that chose Texas as the first state in the Us to think a new nuclear power plant scheme in nearly 30 years, reports Tom Fowler of the Houston Chronicle.
A coalition of groups plans to intervene in the Federal chronicle of Princeton, N.J.-based Nrg Energy's application to build two new reactors next to the existing South Texas scheme nuclear plant in Matagora County, Texas.
A 60-day collective comment period is under way until end of February '08 for those who care to intervene in the chronicle for the joint building and operation permit.
Officials with the Sierra Club, collective habitancy and the Sustainable vigor and Economic amelioration Coalition (Seed) plan to intervene. Karen Hadden, director of Seed, urges habitancy to "create a new nuclear resistance movement to say no to the nuclear regurgitation."
In increasing the dangers of storing nuclear waste indefinitely and the role it may play in nuclear weapons proliferation, Seed points out that in the late 1970s and early 1980s projects regularly ran way over funds and schedule, as proof new projects will also be costly.
The nuclear industry's belief on government incentives and subsidies, together with billion in risk insurance, billions in building loan guarantees and a production tax credit, illustrates how the true cost of nuclear is incommunicable and a burden to taxpayers.
Neil Carman, director of the clean air schedule for the Sierra Club in Texas said a lot of habitancy are "coming out of the woodwork and wanting to work on this." Carman stated, "I think you will see a very strong anti-nuclear movement in Texas."
Californians Reject More Nukes
An initiative to lift the California's ban on new nuclear power plants will not appear on the June 2008 ballot. State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, has withdrawn the ballot initiative he submitted to state elections officials, after collective view polls found lukewarm hold for new nuclear power plants in the state. The initiative would have overturned a 1976 state law prohibiting building of new nuclear reactors until a permanent explication for the warehouse of very radioactive spent nuclear fuel is found.
WorldWide Nuclear Proliferation
There are more than 100 nuclear reactors now being built, planned or on order, together with one in Vietnam. Argentina, Brazil and South Africa plan to advance existing programs; and Thailand, Egypt and Turkey are among the countries considering building their first reactors. China plans to bring more than 30 more nuke plants online by 2020, adding to its 11 existing ones.
Countries new to or still learning about nuclear power "have to move down the learning curve, and they will learn from (their) mistakes," says Philippe Jamet, director of nuclear premise security for the International Atomic vigor department (Iaea), a U.N. Body set up in 1957 to contribute capability controls and expertise to countries with nuclear programs. They oversee security standards, but now the department is preoccupied with monitoring Iran and North Korea over suspected nuclear arms programs, and as Iaea Director general Mohamed ElBaradei says, they cannot be the main guarantor of safety.
Review to Renew Oyster Creek Nears Conclusion
The final steps in the Nrc's observation of the Oyster Creek license reparation application will be the commission's ruling on the request for retrial and, if it rejects the appeal, the issuance of a license extension. If the coalition's request for retrial is rejected, the decision could then be challenged in federal court.
The coalition says it's ready to go transmit to the federal court if the request for retrial is denied.
For more information palpate Edith Gbur at 732-240-5107. Http://www.bized.com
Solar Vs Nuclear
