No nukes? Energy crunches possible on both sides of the Pacific

In both Japan and California, the lack of nuclear power plant generating capacity could cause problems this summer.  Japan is down to one plant after shutdowns related to the Fukushima tsunami event, and California is worried about a restart of San Onofre.

Japan has 17 reactors (54 units) and only one is currently generating power, and that one is going to have a maintenance shut down in May.  It could be a long hot summer in Japan.

Japan down to one nuclear reactor after shutdown

San Onofre is down because some of the pressurized lines are aging.  Well, I coulda told them that was going to happen.  If you don't keep up with the maintenance, like any complex system, stress failures are going to be increasingly likely.  So California is also facing the potentiality of a long hot summer.

The more that the world doesn't realize nuclear is both the way to avoid the long hot summers and the hotter decades (due to global warming from greenhouse gases), the more we're going to see power shortage stories like this.  Wind and solar aren't going to step into these yawning gaps anytime soon.

Concern over offline California nuclear plant

A major heat wave or transmission line outage during the peak season could see South Orange County and the San Diego and Los Angeles areas facing energy shortages without the 2,200 megawatts of power generated by San Onofre, a report presented to the Independent System Operator board said.  Board officials said they plan to produce more energy from other sources and convince customers to scale back on demand.

Good luck with THAT!