We support "Keep It in the Ground" movement
As world leaders prepare to sign the Paris climate agreement in New York City, there’s a lot of progress to celebrate. But the United States continues to lease public land and water for fossil fuel extraction, going against claims made in Paris and Obama’s legacy, which is why Waterkeeper Alliance is a part of the Keep It in the Ground movement.
Two consecutive years of record global temperatures have increased support for a transition to renewable energy. If temperature statistics aren’t enough to get our attention, the unprecedented ferocity of this past year’s El Nino foreshadows the local implications of climate change. The destruction it wrought on south Florida through heavy winter rains and the resulting Lake Okeechobee and Caloosahatchee watershed runoff devastated our coastal waters and has the potential to fundamentally degrade our region’s economy.
Then there is the nuclear option. FPL’s Miami Turkey Point nuclear power plant expansion of 2,200 MW will cost $18 billion, according to an Associated Press story. That’s around $8 per Watt of generating capacity. Commercial scale solar electric power now costs as little as $1.33 per Watt and, after accounting for the hours of sunlight in a day and conversion inefficiencies, that comes to around $8 per Watt.
Operations and maintenance costs, transmission inefficiencies and other considerations add layers of complexity to the calculations of power costs, but the basic point is that solar has already reached parity with nuclear and will soon surpass it in cost effectiveness.
We’ve watched as solar prices have plummeted in recent years and we will surely continue to see them drop in coming years. Costs associated with our current nuclear power technologies will, however, only rise. Given this economic reality, why should Florida ratepayer support expansion of FPL’s old nuclear power plant?
Only when we truly embrace a full accounting approach to our energy options combined with a Keep It in the Ground ideology, will we move toward a renewable energy future and make progress in avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. We can make an impact by delivering signatures to the White House demanding that President Obama keep fossil fuels in the ground and by contacting the Florida Public Service Commission about the Turkey Point nuclear power plant expansion.
John Capece is director of the Caloosahatchee Riverwatch, a Waterkeeper Alliance Affiliate.