Does Cleaner Energy Mean Nukes for Florida?
While hosting an international climate change summit last week, Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist signed into law executive orders that include setting limits on global warming pollution, restricting emissions from cars sold in the state, requiring energy-efficient state buildings, and requiring utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.
But despite solar power being vastly under-represented in the Sunshine State, Governor Crist is awfully excited about nuclear power (even lumping it together as “renewable” along with wind and solar in his remarks at the Florida Summit on Global Climate Change).
Nuclear supporters argue that it would be expensive at best and impossible at worst to meet the 20 percent renewable energy goal with only solar, wind and biofuels. The President and CEO of Progress Energy Florida, Jeff Lyash, told the St. Petersburg Times the only way the Governor’s goals are achievable is with nuclear.
Others aren’t so optimistic about a nuke-rush in Florida. It would take at least 10 years and billions of dollars to get the necessary state and federal approval and construct a new plant, and that money could go much further by making energy use as efficient as possible and by developing truly clean, renewable sources of energy like solar power. Dale Bryk of the Natural Resources Defense Council explained,
"If you spend all the money that you have to develop global warming options on nuclear, you’re going to do the least you can possibly do to solve the problem by spending the most money.”
Governor Crist is doing better on the coal front. He, along with others, pressured Florida utilities to drop an 800 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant because of concerns over its global warming pollution. In June, the Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected a proposal by Florida Power & Light to build a 960 MW coal plant near Everglades National Park. The PSC based its 4-0 vote in part on concerns about the plant’s climate change emissions – marking the first time that global warming has ever played a role in the body’s decision.
