Since at least the time of this post, Green Readers have been following proposals of Progress Energy and Florida Power and Light to build future nuclear power plants and note that the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has filed a Petition to Intervene in this Power Plant Siting Application (read the full petition here.)
The Florida Cabinet meets this Tuesday, August 11th to vote on whether to approve Progress Energy's application to construct at the Levy County site. Public comments will be accepted, if you register prior to the meeting. Thanks to Carolyn Oblin for the link to the agenda and other relevant information.
Public comments that bolster the concerns raised in the SACE petition have been generated since the projects were first announced. Last month's press release from the SACE, quoted testimony to Florida's Public Service Commission (PSC) indicated that, notwithstanding the environmental concerns, the financing of two proposed plants (Levy County and Turkey Point near Miami) was "not prudent." This ties back to the proposal of both Florida Power and Light and Florida's Progress Energy to bill customers now for costs incurred later, thus passing the investment risks to customers. It is conceivable that Florida's electric customers could pay and pay for a project that never gets built and never returns anything to the customers for their investment.
"The Economics of Nuclear Reactors" by Dr. Mark Cooper, a report released on June 18, 2009, found that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than it would to generate the same electricity from a combination of more energy efficiency and renewables. The full report is available here.
See also Bruce Ritchie's comments on Levy County and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection at FloridaEnvironments.com
8.09.2009
*
0 comments:
Post a Comment