Brunner Island Power Plant. December 2020
Deadly addiction by the numbers
Southcentral Pennsylvania is awash in power. Consider the following outputs:
Conawingo Dam - 548 MWe
Holtwood Dam -230 MWe
Safe Harbor Dam - 422 MWe
Total: 1200 MWe
Brunner Island Coal Fired Plant
1567 MWe
Peach Bottom Nuclear Plant
2617 MWe
The lower Susquehanna River supports an amazing array of power plants. They all have pluses and minuses.
The dams provide "clean" energy and flood control. The damage to the environment caused by them, however, is the least discussed of the three types of power listed above. Shad, salmon, and eel no longer run the Susquehanna because the dams block their life cycles. Some attempts at fish ladders and fish elevators have been made, but they tend to break down frequently and have not been very successful. The power companies only grudgingly keep them going to make a show that they are environmentally friendly. The lower Susquehanna also used to have rapids and huge boulders. What income has been lost from missed water recreation in the summer? Could lower York and Lancaster counties have been a famous place for people in summers to raft the mighty Susquehanna? Tourism IS a booming sector in our ever-increasing service-related economy. The dams, however, can also help "jump start" the electrical grid in the Northeast in the wake of catastrophic failure. Apparently traditional power plants need a jolt of electricity to start up, so they are a very handy power source to have close to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. If a solar storm wipes out the grid, it will be rebuilt using Susquehanna's hydropower.
Peach Bottom. Just wow! Look at all that power produced, but at what risk? Nuclear has gone through such phases of 'love" and "hate", it is difficult to know the future of it at all. Nuclear is the cleanest except when it's not. Should something be avoided simply because of a small potential for catastrophe, no matter how remote? However, if said catastrophe would render a huge section of heavily farmed and populated Pennsylvania unlivable for centuries to come, is any risk worth that? Ask the people of Fukushima or Chernobyl - I am sure they have a lot to say. I was a high school student for the Three Mile Island radiation leak, of MINOR accident fame. The plant was totally decommissioned in the end, but not due to the tarnished name - there was simply an oversupply of power in the region and no need to keep it running.
Finally, Brunner Island. It is not a mega-producer like Peach Bottom, but it still provides more power than the dams combined. The world, however, is drowning in CO2 and plants like Brunner are huge contributors. Sierra Club even took Talen Energy (the owner) to court and won a judgement against Brunner Island. From 2025, it will only burn "cleaner" natural gas - but will still emit a LOT of CO2 after the change.
Meanwhile, two lone wind turbines spin away on top of Turkey Hill overlooking the Susquehanna river. I am not sure if the area is even a good candidate for wind power. They look out of place, like some experiment that failed before it began. Maybe they are there to divert our eyes from the Lancaster County Landfill built on one of the most scenic lookouts in the county.
Choose your poison carefully - the need for electricity only grows and with it our addiction.