Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Should I purchase a last minute plane ticket to San Francisco?

By 29 Comments

Diablo greenI had originally intended to be occupied and unable to attend the March for Environmental Hope. Things changed. My schedule has opened up.

Should I go to San Francisco tomorrow and join in the March? I’m feeling a strong pull, but it’s not an easy or cheap decision to make.

I’ve decided to leave it up to you. Mark your donation with a note like “I vote yes”. If funds are sufficient, I’ll go. If not, I’ll return the money.

If I can get the last minute round-trip cross country flight with baggage covered, I can handle the rest of the expenses. I have the requisite camping gear and my green “Friends of Diablo Canyon” tee shirt.

If you’d like to help in non-monetary ways because you live in the SF area, please send a direct email to rod_adams at atomicinsights.com.

As of 10:26 am, your support of my last minute fundraising has provided about 80% of the $1275 round trip airfare. (Traveling to and from Lynchburg isn’t optimally cheap.)

I’m heading to San Francisco. For all who voted yes by sending your cash, thank you very much. In case anyone is interested, 16 people have contributed so far.

The button below will remain active; without additional help, I need to cover many of the associated expenses out of pocket.

As always, supporting Atomic Insights is not tax deductible.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tell the Moms thanks for their diligence and resolve and that you’ll be marching with them in spirit and you’ll be allocating your limited resources and time to advance the battle on other critical fronts yet fully closed to us. Pawn in your tee shirt for a couple seconds of pro-nuke ads.

    Reply

    • Mitch:

      Thanks for the advice. However, your math or awareness of the cost of advertising is sadly lacking.

      Let’s say I was able to “pawn” a used tee shirt for $5.00. (That would obviously involve a hugely generous pawn shop owner.)

      Creating an effective 30 sec commercial might require a budget of $1,000 – $2,000,000. According to a Google search, the average agency created ad for TV cost close to $350,000 in 2008.

      AIRING such a commercial on a popular sit com might run >$250,000 each time it runs.

      http://adage.com/article/news/costs-ad-prices-tv-mobile-billboards/297928/

      So let’s say I invest $5.00 in an ad campaign based on a single 30 sec ad run several times. If the total cost is $500,000 for a brief run on national TV, my contribution would pay for about 0.0003 seconds, not a couple of seconds.

      Reply

  3. So did I.

    BTW, Rod, I just got the following E-mail from the march organizer stating the following:

    “With the news of PG&E’s deal– we’ve decided to dedicate part of the weekend to engage you all in long-term planning on how to save the plant in 2024 (if that’s what it comes to), and larger than that how to save nuclear plants all over the country.”

    Something I think you might be interested in. I know I am.

    Reply

    • Action must start long before 2024; the re-licensing process has to be re-started well in advance of the expiration.  The enemies of DC only have to run out the clock now.

      Reply

  5. Yes, you should go. I would if I could. For those that are there, use PG&E’s own words against them.
    —–
    But Earley noted that California’s unique suite of policies formed the basis for the deal.

    He cited last year’s passage of S.B. 350, a bill that raised the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 50 percent and mandated a doubling of energy efficiency by 2030 as well as continued growth of rooftop solar systems and local governments procuring their own electricity, a practice known as community choice aggregation.

    “All of these things have contributed to our conclusion that we can phase out Diablo Canyon,” Earley said.

    The agreement commits PG&E to using renewables for 55 percent of its total retail sales by 2031.

    He said the deal would not have happened if PG&E had gotten its way in negotiations last year to redefine RPS-eligible renewables to include nuclear power.

    “We actually do believe that we could have had a lower-cost strategy that way, and we would have been using nuclear,” he said. “Given the current state policies, this is the best solution for us.”
    —–
    http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060039199

    If nuclear was allowed the CA’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, it would have been the cheaper choice. Push for a change there and maybe they can save the plant. I realize that they “lost” that political fight already, but now we know that Diablo is dead without it (as opposed to just being “pretty sure”). For those states with an RPS, It’s time we get those states to include nuclear in their RPS (Ohio has it in theirs… it’s for advanced nuclear).

    Reply

  7. Sadly, I cannot send money, things are too tight at the moment.

    However, over at Global Warming Fart of the Day a poster has quantified the retirement of Diablo Canyon in terms of 2015 Wind Power additions to the US power network(s). It seems like a good way of communicating the magnitude of the decision:

    “Closing Diablo Canyon negates 80% of all the wind added to the grid in 2015. In the entire US.
    In 2015, Diablo Canyon 1 & 2 produced 18542.88 GWh of electricity.
    Source:
    https://www.iaea.org/…/CountrySt…/ReactorDetails.aspx…
    https://www.iaea.org/…/CountrySt…/ReactorDetails.aspx…
    In 2015, 8115 MW of new wind was added to the grid in the US.
    Source:
    https://www.iaea.org/…/CountrySt…/ReactorDetails.aspx…
    In 2015, the average capacity factor for wind in the US was 32.5%
    Source:
    https://www.eia.gov/elec…/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm…
    This year, the expected electricity generated from all the wind added to the grid in 2015 is 23103.41 GWh.”

    You could go even further and add the other recent plants whose closure is threatened to show how destructive these ‘environmental’ decisions are.

    I wonder if the US Energy Secretary can be expected to comment on this big impact in the Energy Sector?

    Reply

  10. Donate button didn’t work for me (error after logging into paypal), so I emailed you some funds from within paypal.

    Reply

  11. Did you consider any multimodal options to get to a better hub like D.C.?

    I had thought you were going to be in Atlanta for the Duke teaching thing, but maybe that is later in the summer. When I looked about 2 weeks ago, I found a round-trip flight from Atlanta for under $400. I have a feeling I may end up regretting not attending.

    Reply

      • Sorry to hear that you didn’t get to finish out the teaching stint.
        My grandparents’ area in West Virginia is experiencing a ton of flooding from those storms that grounded your flight westward.

  12. Great work all! Ben Heard of DecarboniseSA will be there; he’s just posted about it at decarbonisesa.com/2016/06/23/liars-or-bullshit-artists-i-call-bullshit-the-truth-about-diablo-canyon/. Make the march effective!

    Reply

      • It’s a pity that we don’t have a concise name for bullshit that doesn’t include the word “shit”, but you have to admit that the thing itself does deserve the connotation.

      • I sometimes use the word “tripe” — a food that (I understand) has a fecal smell and taste.

      • Yes, E-P, but if it gets used more often, then it gets understood. It may be arcane, but it isn’t like trying to generate a new word. Plus, there is a benefit to using a word that an opponent in an argument would have to “look up.”

      • It’s a pity that we don’t have a concise name for bullshit that doesn’t include the word “shit” …

        Personally, I think that’s a bunch of bull.

        😉

      • One item to note regarding the language aspect is the cultural difference between the U.S. Southeast (where you and I live, Brian) and Australia. Unless I am mistaken, B.S. is not seen as such a vulgar term in Australia as it is by many Southern Baptists.

    • @jaagu

      Tell you what, I’d be happy to increase the bet to $100 if you’re willing. I just reviewed the terms of the wager. All that needs to happen for me to win is for Henry Hub prices to exceed $6/MMBTU before the beginning of September.

      This source probably still agrees that you will win, but it identifies a lot of unknowns that may affect prices this summer.

      https://rbnenergy.com/whats-going-on-natural-gas-rally-coal-gas-competition-and-power-burn

      Gas prices are notoriously spiky, especially when the balance between supply and demand gets tight. We’re not talking about the long term here, we’re talking about daily price swings for a difficult to store product whose demand can skyrocket at times that are not under the control of the suppliers.

      Reply

      • @Rod

        Yes you may be lucky with Brexit and the other chaos going on around the world. So I’ll stick to our original bet.

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