Dr. Conca reports that in one fell swoop, the unnecessary closing of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, aka SONGS, in San Diego negated nearly all the low-carbon electricity generation from all the wind and solar installed in California. The plant retirement is equivalent to rolling back the clock on twenty years of solar and wind deployment in the Golden State.
Also lost were 1,500 local jobs and over 400 million dollars in lost revenue and increased costs to Southern California. But that may be closer to a billion dollars if you add the three huge new transmission projects recommended to deal with the SONGS closure as well as the new pipelines to supply the new gas plants replacing SONGS, aka CAISO.
Until now, California has led the country in progress toward a low-carbon energy future. The state has one of the most ambitious renewable energy mandates 33 per cent of its electricity must be carbon free by 2020 and an even more ambitious greenhouse gas - GHG - reduction plan.
Although California failed to meet its 2010 goal of being 20 per cent renewable, the state has installed wind and solar arrays that produced about 20 billion kWhs of low-carbon electricity last year, the most in America. Its geothermal and biomass production has stayed steady at 12 billion and 6 billion kWhs. Solar produced almost 4 billion kWhs.
California also had four nuclear reactors that produced, on average, 35 billion kWhs a year of low-carbon electricity and avoided over 20 million tons of carbon emissions per year.
Resource Portal for I2M Clients, Associates, and Geoscientists
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-