ML24200A132
| ML24200A132 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  |
| Issue date: | 07/18/2024 |
| From: | Public Commenter Public Commenter |
| To: | NRC/NMSS/DREFS |
| NRC/NMSS/DREFS | |
| References | |
| 89FR53659 | |
| Download: ML24200A132 (4) | |
Text
From:
Patricia Paton <user@votervoice.net>
Sent:
Thursday, July 18, 2024 10:44 AM To:
PalisadesRestartEnvironmental Resource
Subject:
[External_Sender] I'm calling on you to approve restarting the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant!
Dear The NRC,
I'm writing to urge the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve the plan to restart the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan, as supported by the Biden Administration and Governor Whitmer.
Nuclear power is much cleaner and safer than fossil fuels, and America needs all the clean electrons we can get right now. Let's make this happen!
The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant was closed for financial reasons in 2022, but a new owner is working to make it the first restarted nuclear power plant in American history, bringing more clean electrons on the grid right when we need them. The Biden Administration and the State of Michigan have worked together closely to make this project possible, with the Department of Energy providing a conditional commitment for a loan of up to $1.52 billion to restart the Palisades plant.
Thanks to an effective collaboration between the Biden-Harris Administration, the State of Michigan, the Michigan Legislature, and Holtec, work will begin shortly to restart operations at Palisades. Once complete, Palisades will become the first successfully restarted nuclear power plant in American history, protecting 600 union jobs at the plant, 1,100 in the community, and access to clean, reliable power for 800,000 homes.
-Governor Gretchen Whitmer, D-Michigan As a climate activist, I strongly support the plan to reopen the Palisades nuclear power plant. Heres why.
Reopening Palisades would be a good thing for climate action, as nuclear power is much cleaner and safer than fossil fuels. Nuclear and renewables are the only major energy sources with less than 10 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per gigawatt-hour and less than 0.1 human death per terawatt-hour of electricity production.
Worst-case scenario nuclear accidents kill fewer people than fossil fuel plants working normally. A 2021 study from Harvard calculated that fossil fuel-caused air pollution killed over 8 million people in 2018, making fossil fuels responsible for one-fifth of all human deaths worldwide. And thats just direct fossil fuel deaths, from soot and particulate matter in the air getting in peoples lungs. Indirect fossil fuel deaths, from the wildfires, storms, heatwaves droughts, floods, and famines exacerbated by climate change, are harder to calculate but are also considerable.
Shutting down nuclear power might seem safer, but often ends up killing people. A 2020 study found that Germanys phase-out of nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster directly caused over 1,100 additional deaths from air pollution each year!
The [German nuclear] phase-out resulted in more than 1,100 additional deaths per year from increased concentrations of SO2, NOx, and PM (particulate matter). The increase in production from hard coal plants is the key driver here, making up roughly 80% of the increase in mortality impacts.
-Jarvis, Deschenes, and Jha, 2019.
Furthermore, nuclear power is a zero-carbon emissions energy source. Shutting down nuclear power generally means making climate change worse. Germanys unnecessary closing of its last nuclear power plants in 2023 has been widely criticized for causing a short-term increase in coal burning. This has slowed decarbonization, with a treadmill effect where the new wind and solar power coming online is replacing nuclear power going offline, swapping one clean energy source for another without decreasing the use of fossil fuels. To be fair, Germany has also committed to ending coal burning by 2030 and replacing it with even more renewables, so this isnt a permanent issue-but its already caused years of unnecessarily high emissions during a climate crisis! Not okay!
On April 16, the day after the final nuclear plants shut down in Germany, the country recorded a carbon intensity of 476 grams of CO2 equivalent for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. About half the nations electricity came from renewable sources, but coal made up about 30% of the supply.
Meanwhile, in France, only 30% of electricity came from renewables. Add in nuclear, though, and low-carbon power sources made up 93% of the electricity supply. So Frances emissions for every unit of electricity were lower than Germanys by a factor of nearly 10, at 51 grams CO2-eq/kWh, largely because of its heavy reliance on nuclear power.
-MIT Technology Review It's true that nuclear power has been overtaken, so to speak, by equally clean and safe technologies that are also cheaper and faster to build (not to mention less controversial). Both solar and wind power got incredibly cheap, incredibly fast in the 2010s due to rapid advances in technology and a surge in investment: from 2020 onwards, solar has been the cheapest source of electricity in history. During this same period, nuclear power got more expensive. Unsurprisingly, this has led to the building of lots more wind and solar and very little new nuclear - thats why new solar and battery storage projects are set to account for over 80% of newly built U.S. grid capacity in 2024 while new nuclear will supply 2%.
Still, we need all the clean electrons on the grid we can get - nuclear is a clean, safe, and zero-carbon-emissions technology that we should support where feasible.Where we have shut down perfectly good nuclear power plants, as with the Palisades case in Michigan, we should reactivate them to help achieve cleaner air and lower emissions.
I'm calling on you to help speed up the transition away from fossil fuels, the dirtiest energy source, and approve the reopening of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant!
Sincerely, Patricia Paton PO Box 56 Canyon, CA 94516 ppaton56@gmail.com
Federal Register Notice:
89FR53659 Comment Number:
9 Mail Envelope Properties (EC2AMAZ-B2OATR3c854e9c5fd97433d9acd82fab6971147)
Subject:
[External_Sender] I'm calling on you to approve restarting the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant!
Sent Date:
7/18/2024 10:44:10 AM Received Date:
7/18/2024 10:50:13 AM From:
Patricia Paton Created By:
user@votervoice.net Recipients:
"PalisadesRestartEnvironmental Resource" <PalisadesRestartEnvironmental.Resource@nrc.gov>
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