Brian Pleads His Case

CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION MARCH 2006
California depends on three nuclear power plants for a sizable share of the overall electricity supply in the state. These three plants alone generate 13 percent of California’s annual electricity supply, and the two in-state nuclear plants are the second and third largest power plants in the state. (Energy Commission 2004b) Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) owns and operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, a 2,160 MW two-unit plant licensed through 2021 (Unit 1) and 2025 (Unit 2). Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) co-own the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), a 2,200 MW power plant with three units. SONGS Units 2 and 3 are licensed through 2022; Unit 1 was shut down in 1992. SCE, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and a consortium of Southern California municipal utilities have a combined 27 percent ownership interest in the 3,825 MW Palo Verde nuclear power plant. It is located outside of Phoenix and operated by Arizona Public Service Corporation. Palo Verde’s three units are licensed through 2024, 2025, and 2027.

Ok you got me on that one, you only use 3.12 hours of nuclear power every day, since 13 percent of a 24 hour day comes out to be 3.12 hours, I was rounding up.

This is from the Nuclear Energy Institute, If you go to the link below there is a very in depth report on Diablo Canyon, which is a pdf file.

In addition to the economic benefits provided by Diablo Canyon, the plant generated 16 billion kilo watt hours(kWh) of electricity in 2002, approximately 10 percent of California’s electricity needs. This low cost electricity helped keep energy prices in California down. During 1999-2001, Diablo Canyon had a production cost of 1.57 cents/kWh compared to an average production cost of 3.61 cents/kWh for the rest of the California market. Diablo Canyon did all of this without producing air pollution typical of some other power generation sources.

http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/reliableandaffordableenergy/economicbenefitsstudies/diablocanyon/

I’m surprised that you would ask if solar is heavily subsidized, one of Michael's current post is asking everybody to support a subsidy, but here is some infor for California anyway.

http://www.californiasolarcenter.org/incentives.html

I didn’t mean to insult you but, with so much information available on the internet there should be no excuse for not knowing some of this information.

Posted by: Brian | September 6, 2007 08:08 PM