Energy Self-Destructiveness

Economy-saving renewable energy can't get the time of day from the Big-Coal-owned Kentucky General Assembly, but legislators are publicly ejaculating over nuking the Bluegrass.

A proposal to end Kentucky’s 26-year ban on building nuclear power plants is moving again in the state legislature.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday added the provision to a bill that would give companies the right to condemn land for carbon dioxide transmission pipelines.
The Senate first approved the nuclear power proposal — originally found in Senate Bill 26 and sponsored by Sen. Bob Leeper, I-Paducah— in January but it has been stalled since then in the House budget committee.

SNIP

Gov. Steve Beshear said in a statement that Leeper’s proposal “is in line with our comprehensive energy plan for the future of Kentucky.”

“In order to meet the energy demands of the future, we need to at least be able to begin the conversation about nuclear energy in Kentucky,” Beshear said.

Setting aside for the moment that Beshear's "comprehensive energy plan" consists of handing the entire General Fund over to the Magic Buggy Whip industry, it's too fucking ironic that Kentucky is discovering nukes just when the rest of the country is finally concluding that nuclear is a lethal risk, an economic black hole and an energy dead end.

Last week, Pew released a survey with the headline ‘Support for Alternative Energy and Offshore Drilling.’ The piece begins, "The public continues to favor a wide range of government policies to address the nation’s energy supply…"

That is accurate, but it doesn’t get at the most striking data. The most important finding in the survey is the fact that clean energy and mass transit investments are vastly more popular than nuclear investments and offshore drilling.

Nukes are so over that even Vermont, home of one of the nation's first nuclear power plants, has given up.

In a rare case of state involvement in nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 yesterday to block a license extension for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials, and other problems.

Unless the chamber reverses itself, it would be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives decided to close a reactor.

The vote was taken barely more than a week after President Obama declared a new era of rebirth for the nation’s nuclear industry, announcing federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to ensure the construction of a twin-reactor plant near Augusta, Ga.
Vermont Yankee’s recent troubles are viewed by some as a challenge to arguments that reactors are clean, well run, and worth the enormous investment involved in building and operating them.

State lawmakers voiced frustration over recent leaks of radioactive tritium at the 38-year-old plant as well as the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and inaccurate testimony by the plant’s owner, Entergy Corp., a Louisiana-based nuclear operator. Plant officials had testified that there were no underground pipes at Vermont Yankee that could leak tritium, although there were.

Scientists tracking the leaks have found no evidence that the substance has entered the drinking supply or harmed anyone.

Lawmakers at yesterday’s session also voiced doubts that Entergy would have enough money to decommission the plant in view of the costly tritium leak and other troubles.

In the decisive vote, senators defeated a resolution that would have authorized the state to issue a certificate of “public good,’’ which would be necessary to keep Vermont Yankee operating.

Not a "public good." Kinda like coal.

You'll find multiple posts about how indescribably stupid it is to move from coal to nukes here.