This morning, according to Reuters, President Obama is planning to address the graduating class of the US Coast Guard Academy:
Here is a question for FPL and for NextEra Energy, its corporate parent. If the Pentagon is being required -- as a matter of common sense economics and national security -- to assess its assets for vulnerability to climate change, why aren't you (FPL) requiring the same of your nuclear facility and planned new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point?
The question of vulnerability is not just to the nuclear infrastructure. FPL has prepared an environmental impact statement for its new nuclear reactors, saying there is "no vulnerability" since the reactors are being elevated on enormous pads more than twenty feet above surrounding sea level. Vulnerability assessments, though, to sea level rise in South Florida need to take into account what will happen to the rate payer base from which both FPL's assets and profitability depends.
Why is this important? Because someone (ie. FPL) will have to be responsible for maintaining the economic viability of nuclear reactors. A vulnerability assessment ought to contemplate what happens to the FPL ratepayer base in South Florida that will begin to buckle under the pressure of climate change long before sea levels rise to intolerable heights. Why? Poor planning on roadways, sewerage, and water infrastructure could have drastic impacts on real estate markets in South Florida within the service lifetimes of the new $26 billion reactors.
The failure of FPL to adequately plan for environmental problems at its existing Turkey Point reactors is enshrined in the public record. Consider that FPL cannot deal with just a small rise in temperatures in its cooling canal system for its existing nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, for which its engineers have no solution except to tap into Florida water resources that are already committed to people's drinking water needs in South Florida. (That is also today's story in the Miami Herald.)
With such unplanned and un-manageable crisis at hand, why isn't anyone asking the tough questions of FPL now, or, is it just the case that FPL considers itself and its planning even more protected, sacrosanct, and immune to the influence of climate change or accountability to the public than the Pentagon?
The answer is that there is too much money being made, right now, from early cost recovery of the planning and marketing of its new nuclear reactors. For this, thank Gov. Rick Scott, Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam, the rest of the Executive Branch and the Florida legislature. FPL needs to be held accountable. Hello? Anyone?
Perhaps President Obama ought to consider an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require the nation's electric utilities to provide vulnerability assessments to its business models based on climate change scenarios. My guess is that many of the utilities have already undertaken such analyses: they are just being held secret behind corporate veils ... you know, the kind that aren't available to people.
"You are part of the first generation of officers to begin your service in a world where the effects of climate change are so clearly upon us," Obama is set to tell the 224 graduating cadets, according to excerpts from his prepared remarks.So why isn't what is good for the Pentagon, also good for the nation's electric utilities?
"Climate change will shape how every one of our services plan, operate, train, equip, and protect their infrastructure, today and for the long-term," Obama will say.
The Pentagon is assessing the vulnerability to climate change of its 7,000 bases, installations and facilities, many of which are on the coast, the White House said.
Here is a question for FPL and for NextEra Energy, its corporate parent. If the Pentagon is being required -- as a matter of common sense economics and national security -- to assess its assets for vulnerability to climate change, why aren't you (FPL) requiring the same of your nuclear facility and planned new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point?
The question of vulnerability is not just to the nuclear infrastructure. FPL has prepared an environmental impact statement for its new nuclear reactors, saying there is "no vulnerability" since the reactors are being elevated on enormous pads more than twenty feet above surrounding sea level. Vulnerability assessments, though, to sea level rise in South Florida need to take into account what will happen to the rate payer base from which both FPL's assets and profitability depends.
Why is this important? Because someone (ie. FPL) will have to be responsible for maintaining the economic viability of nuclear reactors. A vulnerability assessment ought to contemplate what happens to the FPL ratepayer base in South Florida that will begin to buckle under the pressure of climate change long before sea levels rise to intolerable heights. Why? Poor planning on roadways, sewerage, and water infrastructure could have drastic impacts on real estate markets in South Florida within the service lifetimes of the new $26 billion reactors.
The failure of FPL to adequately plan for environmental problems at its existing Turkey Point reactors is enshrined in the public record. Consider that FPL cannot deal with just a small rise in temperatures in its cooling canal system for its existing nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, for which its engineers have no solution except to tap into Florida water resources that are already committed to people's drinking water needs in South Florida. (That is also today's story in the Miami Herald.)
With such unplanned and un-manageable crisis at hand, why isn't anyone asking the tough questions of FPL now, or, is it just the case that FPL considers itself and its planning even more protected, sacrosanct, and immune to the influence of climate change or accountability to the public than the Pentagon?
The answer is that there is too much money being made, right now, from early cost recovery of the planning and marketing of its new nuclear reactors. For this, thank Gov. Rick Scott, Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam, the rest of the Executive Branch and the Florida legislature. FPL needs to be held accountable. Hello? Anyone?
Perhaps President Obama ought to consider an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require the nation's electric utilities to provide vulnerability assessments to its business models based on climate change scenarios. My guess is that many of the utilities have already undertaken such analyses: they are just being held secret behind corporate veils ... you know, the kind that aren't available to people.
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