Florida solar energy chief says new nuke plants are a bad idea

Last year, Gov. Charlie Crist featured the director of the Florida Solar Energy Center as one of the speakers at his Climate Change Summit. The governor has frequently listed both solar and nuclear power as alternatives to burning coal for power, because they don't produce greenhouse gases.

But now Florida Solar Energy Center Director Jim Fenton says nukes are not the answer. Even though Crist still backs the nuke plants, Fenton contends they're too expensive and take too long to build. Instead, he argues, the state should combat climate change primarily by conserving energy.

In fact, Fenton contends, conservation is better than building ANY alternative power sources -- even solar.

"Can we afford to wait ten years for a nuclear power plant to provide our electricity, even if it produces little to no carbon emissions?" Fenton writes in the latest issue of The Energy Chronicle. "We should focus on using less energy rather than trying to find alternative ways to produce energy. Since 51 percent of Florida's electricity needs come from our homes, we should make our existing homes more energy-efficient rather than building more power plants."

After all, Fenton points out, unlike with the new nuclear plants that have been proposed in Levy County and in Miami-Dade County, "you don’t have to wait 10 years to start seeing the advantages of having an energy-efficient home. Once your home is made more energy-efficient, you’ll start seeing the savings right away."

A spokesman for Progress Energy, which wants to build a new nuke plant in Levy County, says energy efficiency is good but it's not enough all by itself. "We believe the best answer combines several approaches," including nuclear plants, said Buddy Eller of Progress Energy.

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[George Cavros]

Dr. Fenton is right on the money!

New nuclear plants cost 4 times as much as most energy efficiency measures in meeting electricity demand. In addition, the payoff is almost immediate.

So whay aren't Florida consumers being offered the option of reducing demand through energy efficiency rather than costly and financially risky nuke plants?

By the way FL consumers pay for new nuke plants as they are being built - that's the $9/month (but likely higher) increase Progress energy customers will be paying on their bill. Guess what: you don't get your money back if construction on the plant is never completed. You can thank the legislature for that little gift to the utility industry in 2006.

The utilites have a guaranteed rate of return on their investments and can pass through all prudent costs to customers - now they can shift the financial burden of new plants on to their customers as well. The shareholders of FL utilities are doing quite well - the same can't be said for Florida's families.

At a time when many FL families are struggling to make financial ends meet, state officials should be forcing utilities to actively promote the lowest cost option in meeting energy demand - energy efficiency.

But they are not - and Florida families are worst of for it.

[David Bradish]

George,

Jim Fenton is sort of on the money. Energy efficiency happens all the time. It is not new. Every year the U.S. spends less dollars on energy per GDP. Here's a link to the Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0105.html

Becoming more efficient does not mean we're going to consume less energy. In fact just the opposite is true. It's called the Jevons Paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

I can understand you may be frustrated with $9 extra a month on your bill, but do you know what would happen if FPL do not build nuclear plants? Florida will rely on more natural gas. If you haven't noticed, natural gas prices are the highest they have been since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit back in 2005. And there are no disruptions causing these high prices.

FPL IS looking out for the customer by building the cheapest source of energy. And that is nuclear right now.

[Tino]

By this reasoning, if we never add any more generating capacity in the state, our electric bills will only get cheaper!

Sigh.

[Lloyd Webb]

Of course Benton does not want nuclear, or any other economic engergy for the customer. Its his competition! He represents one of the most expensive/unreliable souces available. Follow the money. Like most of the vocal environmentalist, they normally want everyone else to conserve. When you get to the bottom of their lifestyle. They drive the biggest cars, live in the largest houses, and often fly around the country in the private jets. My comment to Fenton is to set the example. Give up all of his cars, turn off his air conditioner, and make sure he walks every where he goes. Then I might just take him serious and follow.

To the folks above:

Florida is one of the worst performing states in energy efficiency according to DOE data. Why tap into super-expensive generation plants when you haven't benefited from lower cost energy efficiency? No can argue that this makes no sense from an economic perspective.

It's like popping a diet pill to lose weight before you've changed your lifestyle to incorporate exercise and proper diet - to ensure long-term healthier life.

I'm not sure that nuclear is the cheapest for of energy right now. When the industry makes that claim - they're talking about fuel costs NOT construction costs. Put the two of them together and distributed solar energy starts to look pretty good.

Also, I've never met an environmentalist that flies a private plane - but plenty of utility executives do ....

[David Bradish]

"I'm not sure that nuclear is the cheapest for of energy right now. When the industry makes that claim - they're talking about fuel costs NOT construction costs."

Not true. If you read FPL's Petition for two nuclear units at Turkey Point, you will find that the analysis includes all costs: construction, operation, fuel and decommissioning. Here's the petition: http://www.psc.state.fl.us/library/filings/07/09443-07/09443-07.pdf

You can get as efficient as you want, at the end of the day you're still going to need baseload supply. Nuclear energy will provide that supply by the middle of next decade.

[Rod Adams]

Florida and the rest of the country have not achieved their currently lifestyles quickly and they will not change them quickly.

In order to flourish in our as-built environment, we need reliable, controllable, relatively inexpensive and inexhaustible sources of power. Solar simply does not cut it - the sun shines with collectible intensity less than half of the time. Even when it does shine, collecting the diffuse energy requires massively large collectors compared to the size of comparable power sources.

If one has a solar collector equal in area to the surface area of a car, and one figures out a way to make that collector 100% efficient, the total power available at noon on a crystal clear day amounts to less than 5 horsepower. Building enough collectors to supply the same energy as one or more large power plants would not be a quick, simple or cheap process.

I will grant that building the first new nuclear plant in Florida in more than 25 years will take some time. It is not a quick fix. However, the state can easily support building four plants (or even more) at the same time. Once those plants are completed, they will, like Turkey Point, St. Lucie and Crystal River, provide reliable, on demand power for 60-80 years with very low and predictable fuel and operating costs.

They might even enable their owning utilities to shut down dirty coal and expensive natural gas plants.

Quick fixes are often not the right response to a long term problem.