Letter to the Editor about Oliver Stone’s movie.
I wrote the following reply. Just could not help myself! Probably a lost cause, but you never know.
Marilyn
This letter is in response to Wendle Whiting’s letter about the new Oliver Stone movie. I live 4 miles from Indian Point and was actively involved in the effort to close the reactor. I wish we could take credit for closing Indian Point. That was not the case. Entergy opted to close Indian Point because it was not producing enough income because of unprecedented low gas prices. The closing agreement can be found at www.ipsecinfo.org.
Wind and solar are NOT massively subsidized as is claimed. The most massive subsidy is to nuclear with the Price Anderson Act. Without this guaranteed insurance the industry would close down.
Baseload is an old fashioned bugaboo resurrected by the nuclear industry. It is no longer used in New York, for example, except as a measure of how much power the system needs to function. Renewables are intermittent, but highly predictable. There has not been a problem integrating them into the NY grid.
What we need more of is distributed generation which is generation closer to where it will be used. Plus conservation and efficiency, low hanging fruit that can make a huge difference in how much electricity is required for a particular grid.
In regard to an increase in fossil fuel use – this is a correlation, not a causative effect. In any regard, it is temporary as renewables are scheduled to begin to flood the market, undercutting gas. Our New York grid will be cleaner and greener because of the closing of Indian Point.
