Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
Comments
No mention of how much oil can be drilled on US offshore, how quickly can it be put to market and how long it lasts.
No mention of how much EROEI the Canadian tar sands have, and its polluting effects.
No mention of how close we are to next generation biofuels and how much land is needed to cater to US oil needs by growing switchgrass.
No mention of how much needs to be invested on trains and electrifying the transport sector. No mention of how that compares to investing in oil.
Oil is a weak thing as compared to coal, you don't need nuclear to beat oil. Oil could be beaten by pretty much anything.. natural gas, wind, biofuels.
Fighting oil is not an environmental issue, it is purely an issue of economic security.
Nuclear is needed when we talk of replacing coal, this is the true environmental issue.
One fact that the major oil and gas companies keep touting as a positive is something that I believe is actually quite negative - insiders own less than 5% of the stock in the company. They are managers with interests other than the best interests of the stockholders. Their compensation is based on metrics that might not be best for the long term health of the company.
I think it is very telling that ExxonMobil has poured more than $118 billion of its capital in the past five years into stock purchase plans. The main purpose of such plans is to bump the stock price - usually temporarily. If they really wanted to return the money to the investors - especially tax exempt pension funds, they would raise the dividends, not buy back stock.
ExxonMobil is not the only major making that choice. From my point of view it really makes it clear that their message of "do not raise our taxes, we need the money for investing in future energy" a blatant lie.
Keep comming!!!
Abhishek
http://innovideas.blogspot.com