Oyster Creek shutting down is like taking a baseball bat to over 5 Ivanpah solar plants; it produced ~5400 GWh zero-GHG per year vs Ivanpah's 990 GWh.
@EricHolthaus The replacement power isn't coming from solar and wind, guys. It's coming from natural gas and coal. Solar and wind can't compete with the kind of reliable capacity factor Oyster Creek delivered 24/7.
@EricHolthaus#nuclear power stations that are "unprofitable" are largely so because of cheap natural gas + renewables forcing nuke operators to deal with negative electricity prices. atomicinsights.com/why-cant-exist… NG won't be cheap forever, but #climatechange will continue getting worse.
@EricHolthaus Maybe we'll deploy solar and wind much faster, I don't know. But all of it will be backed up by natural gas and/or coal because "storage" just isn't viable at the kind of scale we need yet. Germany knows all about this.
@EricHolthaus@ShellenbergerMD A lot of detractors to nuclear make hay over the "nuclear waste" issue. It's a paper tiger. Easily contained, and we could reprocess & derive valuable materials from it if we wanted, plus most its fuel value is still there. USA fed. law prevents. That said, 1 pic says it all:
@EricHolthaus@ShellenbergerMD Super thanks to @TMI_Unit1 and @DMarcheskie for the drink holder and brochure. TMI is at risk of shutting down like Oyster Creek. Won't be replaced by wind and solar. More coal & NG blowing more CO2 and some CH4 into the atmosphere, driving #florence - like hurricanes.
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