Down here, CPS is looking at more nukes

And the newest mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro (Dem) is now balking at the idea of building two new nuke plants down at the South Texas nuclear project.

The freaks up in Austin are already up in arms about basically *ANY* new power, but nukes especially.

At least they haven't gone the 'safety' rout yet. Maybe it's because someone will point out that in the ENTIRE history of nuclear power production there has only been one incident that cause death or serious injury....and THAT was caused by a plant entirely designed, built and operated by GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.

Those anti-nuke people aren't against all new power, however. They'd like nothing less than to cure our growing population and energy problems with conservation and renewable energy.

Ok, that's a nice thought, but do me a favor and get out your 'Big Chief' notebook and a #2 pencil.
We'll make it simple, say we have a plant that puts out 100 units of power and the customers use 95 units, we have 5 units in reserve.
The energy company wants to ad another 100 units so we can have 105 units to sell to other power companies and to have plenty for our ever growing population.

The greenies want to ad maybe 40 units on a plot of land 20 times larger than the nuke site- that will ONLY work during the day and if it's windy enough- which it seldom is both. we'll be optimistic and call it 15 units online.
So we have 20 reserve units that we need to withhold from selling because it's unreliable.
Lets review because some aren't good at word problems.
Nukes- 4 of them giving 200 units of power, with 105 to sell to offset the huge construction bill.
Renuables- 2 nukes and solar/wind farms with a 120 peak output and (maybe)25 in reserve that you can't sell to offset the HUGE construction bill.

Now lets add the reason for the discussion- an additional population that will demand electricity ion the future. I don't know, but since they keep coming, lets say 40 new units of power in the foreseeable future.
BUT they'll be required to build green!
Ok, we'll knock off an unrealistic 15 units there and have a combined demand of 95 plus 25 gives us a demand of...130- cool, we're in hot beans.

EXCEPT....solar doesn't work at night, windmills need a minimum (and maximum) airspeed to operate. There could be days without enough wind. Darkness happens every night and in the heat of this summer, demand isn't going down because it's still hot at night.

So we either have a massive bill with 200 units available and able to sell 105 to offset the HUGE bill
-OR-
A massive bill with 120 units of power and a questionable 25 in reserve- barely enough to meet our needs and none to sell to offset the huge bill. Then we have those HURRICANES we have here that'll shut down those eco-friendly power plants for weeks at a time- not to mention some tourist throwing bread up and getting the windmills shut down because of the massive seagull kills.