Indian Point only Supplies 12% of NY Area's Electricity

[amborin]

Showdown at Indian Point” (editorial, April 6) hit the nail on the head in calling on Entergy to start obeying environmental laws and stop abusing the Hudson River.

But in citing Entergy’s highly inflated figure of 30 percent, you overstate Indian Point’s contribution to the Westchester and New York City energy supply. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the plant actually contributes 12.5 percent of the area’s electricity during peak demand periods (July and August), which, in terms of energy reliability, is the only number that is relevant.

Moreover, Indian Point’s 2,000 megawatts can easily be replaced. A highly efficient combined cycle gas-fired plant at the Indian Point site would take care of 1,000 megawatts. The other 1,000 megawatts could come from any number of sources, including demand-side management, energy efficiency, new transmission lines, wind power and the repowering of existing dirty plants — all of which bring the added benefit of improved air quality in the region.

Indian Point, located within 50 miles of 20 million people, or nearly 7 percent of the United States population, has one of the worst operations records of any nuclear plant in the country. It’s time to retire this once useful, now menacing plant and make New York a model for a clean energy future.

Alex Matthiessen

President, Riverkeeper

Tarrytown, N.Y., April 6, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/opinion/l12nuke.html?ref=todayspaper

[Statistical]

1. "gas-fired plant"

Yup sounds about right. Every nuclear plant shut down has been replaced by dangerous fossil fuels.
So it can be "easily" replaced as long as you consider 7 million tons of CO2 a year to be "free".
http://co2now.org/

Also "only 12% of peak" is still a lot and a rather meaningless distinction.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/in_point.html

In 2008 Indian Point had a staggering 97% capacity factor and produced 17 billion kWh of electricity.

Just to put it into perspective every wind turbine every installed in the United States combined produced 50 billion kWh of electricity.

[amborin]

2. solar power:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/business/global/13grid.html?scp=5&sq=solar%20energy&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/info/solar-energy/?inline=nyt-classifier

[Statistical]

3. Have you looked at what 12GW of solar power would cost?

Just curious.


Here is a 550MW plant under construction for $1 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm

So you would only need 22 of these.

Just a mere $22 billion. Since NY doesn't have $22 billion in cash lets say they financed it via a bond at 8% over 30 years. That's $58 billion.

[FBaggins]

4. Not an honest reponse to the editorial.

But in citing Entergy’s highly inflated figure of 30 percent, you overstate Indian Point’s contribution to the Westchester and New York City energy supply. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the plant actually contributes 12.5 percent of the area’s electricity during peak demand periods (July and August),

That's comparing apples to oranges. You can't respond to a citation regarding percentage of total generation with a claimed percentage of PEAK generation and then say that one disproves the other. They aren't the same thing.

It's even more dishonest to talk about this percentage of PEAK demand as "the only number that is relevant" and then say that half of the plant's production can "easily be replaced" by (among other items) "demand side management". That's telling the residents to just avoid using AC at the hottest time of year.

And do we reallt need to talk about including wind as a replacement right after talking about peak demand being the only thing that matters?

I also love "has one of the worst operations records of any nuclear plant in the country" without any citation re: what that means. The worst reported allegations add up to... well... not much beyond paranoia.

Lastly... did anyone else get a kick out of how it "bring(s) the added benefit of improved air quality" to replace an existing nuclear plant with gas?

[Statistical]

5. Well "worst operation record" certainly isn't efficiency.

97% capacity factor vs 92% national average and 85% global average.

I mean fueling outages are about 3%-4% (well more like 6%-8% ever other year). If you have a single non-fueling outage for any reason in the entire year you aren't going to hit 97% capacity factor for two plants on staggered fueling cycle.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/in_point.html

[Confusious]

6. Lets replace a power plant that produces no CO2

With one that does!

That's taking global warming seriously!

But nothing is more important then getting rid of the EbIl nuclear, not even the survival of the planet ( and us by extension ).

[NNadir]

7. At least the dangerous natural gas industry is being open about its waste dumping toxic intentions.

I have never doubted that all anti-nuke activity is a front for the dangerous natural gas industry.

The river keeper seems not to have recognized what climate change is or what its effect on rivers will be.

I guess he. couldn't. care. less.

Why am I not surprised?

The conservation argument is just stupid. If New York could conserve its way out this disaster, it would have done so long ago. In any case, if there's anything to conserve away, it should be the filthy dangeorus fossil fuels industry, which has no idea how to prevent dangerous fossil fuel war, dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping, dangerous fossil fuel depletion or dangerous fossil fuel economics.

I wonder if the River keeper, like Joschka Fischer and Gerhard Schroeder and Amory Lovins has agreed to take a high paid job with the dangerous natural gas industry.

[diane in sf]

8. This thread has been eaten by toads

[Nihil]

10. The LTTE in the OP was written by one.

(Not amborin btw, just the pretentious yet ignorant letter-writer.)

[Nihil]

9. "President, Riverkeeper"? More like "Chief Tosspot, Another Gas-Sponsored ProPollution AstroTurfer"

He (or she) starts with the (deliberately misleading) clip:
> the plant actually contributes 12.5 percent of the area’s electricity during
> peak demand periods (July and August), which, in terms of energy reliability,
> is the only number that is relevant.

... then follows it with a total failure to grasp what he is talking about ...
energy reliability in the gigawatt range being supplied by hand-waves towards
wind power (amongst others). Even if the "12.5%" bit was relevant, has he not
understood that providing one eighth of the total peak demand from a single site
is actually a phenomenally efficient use of land?

He doesn't even recognise the stupidity of what he is claiming:
> Moreover, Indian Point’s 2,000 megawatts can easily be replaced.
> A highly efficient combined cycle gas-fired plant at the Indian Point site
> would take care of 1,000 megawatts. The other 1,000 megawatts could come from
> any number of sources, including demand-side management, energy efficiency,
> new transmission lines, wind power and the repowering of existing dirty plants
> — all of which bring the added benefit of improved air quality in the region.

He is babbling on about replacing 2000MW with 1000MW of CO2-generating gas power
and blithely ignores the other 50% being provided by Indian Point in a quick
shrug & prayer to the gods of wishful thinkers.

If there are ways to "save" 1000MW by "demand-side management", "energy
efficiency" and "new transmission lines" then just fucking do it!

Energy saved is energy saved regardless of the generation method.

IF he is genuinely interested in helping the situation, those improvements
will reduce the need for some fraction of 1000MW needing to be generated
elsewhere.

If he is just a gas-shill then he will continue pushing to replace a 2000MW
station with 1000MW of new gas-fired station.

Actually, we can all see that the latter applies from his subsequent comment:
> ... and the repowering of existing dirty plants
> — all of which bring the added benefit of improved air quality in the region.

:rofl:
What a fucking useless, ignorant & transparent gas-shill.

[joshcryer]

11. Wow @ the bold part. No words.