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AreWeDrunkYet posted:just have the government start building new plants directly. What does this mean? The government doesn't have people working for it who know how to build nuclear plants. If the government wants to build a nuclear plant, it's going to write contracts with companies that can construct nuclear plants. Just like it does with the buildings it builds now. What in the entire history of the US government makes you think that would be any cheaper or more efficient than the current way nuclear plants get built? The freaking new headquarters building for the Department of Homeland Security, which is just a building and doesn't include a nuclear reactor, has run over schedule by more than a decade and over budget by more than 1.5 billion (and those figures are as of *2014*!). https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...95f0_story.html quote:The complex was to be finished as early as this year, at a cost of less than $3 billion, according to the initial plan. That budget has ballooned to $4.5 billion, with completion pushed back to 2026. With the exception of a Coast Guard building that opened last year, the grounds remain undeveloped. I mean, have you heard of this thing called the F-35? Or the Ford-class carriers? Even government software programs are awfully, shittilly managed. The FBI spent $100,000,000 developing a "virtual case file" system that crashed and burned so hard it was never deployed. The USAF's Expeditionary Combat Support System spent over a billion dollars, achieved no design goals, and was canceled because it would have cost *another* billion to achieve 25% of the requirements. The FAA's new ATC system is a similar abortion. Why would "just have the government build plants directly" work better than all those other things?
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Aug 25, 2016 21:00
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The government wouldn't build the plants directly. Just as you said. They'd write Bechtel and Bechtel would propose them a standardized design for $3B a pop plus regional extras. Then they could pay Bechtel to build a dozen of them with taxpayer money. Because as it turns out Bectel is sort of the King of nuclear, and all nuclear anything leads back to them anyway.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:06
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M_Gargantua posted:The government wouldn't build the plants directly. Just as you said. Right. So why would that work any better than those other government projects? The FBI wasn't writing software itself, it made a proposal and a private contractor won the bid and then a bunch of money went down a black hole. The government isn't actually building the DHS headquarters, it made a proposal and a private contractor won the bid and then a bunch of money went down a black hole. Why would the expectation be any different for the government building nuclear plants, *especially* keeping in mind that the biggest driver for why the cost of nuclear plants has quadrupled in a few decades has been the NRC's increasing regulations?
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Aug 25, 2016 21:16
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Phanatic posted:Right. So why would that work any better than those other government projects? You seem to not be aware of this, but most government projects work just fine.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:27
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Fwiw, NRC is working on de-ratcheting. For example, the old fire safety standards were the sort of "you must do X" regulations people are talking about. The last few years, plant ops work on a PRA basis to show that their risk level is acceptable and to take steps to mitigate actual risks rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:38
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fishmech posted:You seem to not be aware of this, but most government projects work just fine. Gonna need a citation on that one.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:38
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Kalman posted:Fwiw, NRC is working on de-ratcheting. For example, the old fire safety standards were the sort of "you must do X" regulations people are talking about. The last few years, plant ops work on a PRA basis to show that their risk level is acceptable and to take steps to mitigate actual risks rather than one-size-fits-all approaches. Uhhhh I helped Brunswick and Fort Calhoun (RIP) start their transitions to NFPA 805 and if you think fire safety standards are a positive example of LESS painful regulations I have a bridge to sell you.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:48
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Phanatic posted:Gonna need a citation on that one. You are currently alive in the 21st century United States, reliant on literally thousands of them every hour of every day.
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Aug 25, 2016 21:55
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Pander posted:If the government is subject to the same time burdens put upon the industry by the NRC, they won't have any more success in building nuclear plants than the private industry. The big difference is capital structure. In order to justify the investment from the (VERY) front-loaded costs of a nuclear power plant that will be generating for 40+ years, especially after you factor in the risks of energy prices shifting in the future and insurance (or factoring in self-insurance) for an unlikely catastrophe, investors/lenders expect a fairly hefty rate of return and charge accordingly for capital. Meanwhile, the US government can borrow money for 30 years at barely above 2% and is far more capable of absorbing the risks of an individual project overrunning or blowing up. Why are we backstopping private loans for the nuclear industry so they can pocket the profits, instead of just doing directly ourselves? Whether it's federal employees or contractors doing the actual building is another argument, and less relevant than having the government finance and take ownership of the project. I can think of plenty of reasons for the government to build up the manufacturing capacity itself, but most likely it would be farmed out to Westinghouse, GE, and Bechtel just like current Navy reactors are. AreWeDrunkYet fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 25, 2016 21:56
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fishmech posted:You are currently alive in the 21st century United States, reliant on literally thousands of them every hour of every day. Nah man society works entirely by hard working and innovative individuals and private organizations, they all work DESPITE the government existing and ruining everything. Do you even know who John Galt is?
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Aug 25, 2016 21:57
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Pander posted:Uhhhh I helped Brunswick and Fort Calhoun (RIP) start their transitions to NFPA 805 and if you think fire safety standards are a positive example of LESS painful regulations I have a bridge to sell you. Related to someone who has done it for ~20 plants over the past 4-5 years, so I've gotten a lot of insight into it. Given that 805 is optional and the operators are opting into doing it, pretty sure operators think it's a lot less painful to deal with.
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Aug 25, 2016 22:02
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Baronjutter posted:Nah man society works entirely by hard working and innovative individuals and private organizations, they all work DESPITE the government existing and ruining everything. Do you even know who John Galt is? *drives on roads, drinks safe water, to a job that relies on skills had from public education* I don't need any loving government, MOM,
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Aug 25, 2016 22:03
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fishmech posted:You are currently alive in the 21st century United States, reliant on literally thousands of them every hour of every day. Oh. So your definition of "works just fine" *includes* massive overruns in budget and schedule, so long as a working road or order of file cabinets for the office shows up eventually. By *that* definition, the current process where the government doesn't build nuclear plants works just fine.
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Aug 25, 2016 22:05
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Phanatic posted:Oh. So your definition of "works just fine" *includes* massive overruns in budget and schedule, so long as a working road or order of file cabinets for the office shows up eventually. Got anyone who's done those things better?
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Aug 25, 2016 22:06
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Also I'm not sure we can blame the NRC for the cost of nuclear when plants across Europe are overtime and overcost, including in pro-nuclear France. Anyone know how the Chinese plants are doing in re: their timeline?
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Aug 25, 2016 22:06
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Phanatic posted:Oh. So your definition of "works just fine" *includes* massive overruns in budget and schedule, so long as a working road or order of file cabinets for the office shows up eventually. That's only what usually happens in the minds of delusional libertarians. Try not jacking off to Ayn Rand for a while.
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Aug 25, 2016 22:08
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Phanatic posted:Oh. So your definition of "works just fine" *includes* massive overruns in budget and schedule, so long as a working road or order of file cabinets for the office shows up eventually. Government programs and projects that work well don't make the news.
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Aug 25, 2016 22:12
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fishmech posted:That's only what usually happens in the minds of delusional libertarians. Try not jacking off to Ayn Rand for a while. Hey now, there is FWA but it is even worse in the private sector. Really the smaller the organization the less likely it is to have internal controls to stop that poo poo. Small businesses are overflowing with dumb TSA level purchasing choices.
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Aug 25, 2016 22:22
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fishmech posted:That's only what usually happens in the minds of delusional libertarians. Try not jacking off to Ayn Rand for a while. So you you actually can't support your claim. Gotcha. http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery...9093096&EXT=pdf quote:For example, Bent Flyverberg, Nils Bruzelius, and Werner Rothengatter have conducted studies of both 258 railway and road projects and large non-transportation projects between 1927 and 1998, and found cost overruns to be generally higher, and often much higher, than what we found for the U.S. during the antebellum era. The cost overruns, moreover, seem to have grown slightly over the period under investigation. In his study of 52 major investment projects (most of which were in mining, manufacturing, and energy) carried out across a range of countries during the 1970s and 1980s, Edward Merrow (using a concept or procedure that produces lower estimates than our approach) found overruns of 88 percent in real terms on average, and markedly higher for public or mixed public-private projects than for private. Overruns are entirely *typical*. Rail projects go overbudget by an average of over 40%. Tunnels and bridges by 35%. 20% is the average for roads. Can you name a major government project that hasn't overrun? In the Airpower thread people were trying to come up with an example of a defense project that came in on time, on budget, and met its design goals, and I don't think there's been one for decades. But I guess that's all just crumpled porno and Ayn Rand. OwlFancier posted:Got anyone who's done those things better? If the government's only going to do *as well as* the current method of building nuclear plants, then what do you suggest is the benefit of the government building nuclear plants? Trabisnikof posted:Also I'm not sure we can blame the NRC for the cost of nuclear when plants across Europe are overtime and overcost, including in pro-nuclear France. Do French plants cost 4 times as much to install as they did 40 years ago?
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Aug 25, 2016 23:09
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Phanatic posted:So you you actually can't support your claim. Gotcha. Dude the very fact that you're posting this on the internet proves you wrong.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:11
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Phanatic posted:Do French plants cost 4 times as much to install as they did 40 years ago? Roughly, yeah.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:19
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Just one taxpayer's opinion, but it's more important to me that the road exist than that there was a budget overrun. Oh no more money was put into the economy with more things purchased and people hired and profits made by everyone working on and supplying the project, overruns are just so cataclysmicly terrible, please save us Rearden Steel 
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Aug 25, 2016 23:20
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Boten Anna posted:Just one taxpayer's opinion, but it's more important to me that the road exist than that there was a budget overrun. Oh no more money was put into the economy with more things purchased and people hired and profits made by everyone working on and supplying the project, overruns are just so cataclysmicly terrible, please save us Rearden Steel No you see ConglomCorp would totally have done a better job and really their $10 toll just to drive 4 blocks would be totally fair.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:27
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fishmech posted:Dude the very fact that you're posting this on the internet proves you wrong. Huh? The Internet started as a defense project and therefore the fact that I'm using the internet proves that if the government built nuclear plants it would be less expensive than it is for private utilities to build nuclear plants? Boten Anna posted:Just one taxpayer's opinion, but it's more important to me that the road exist than that there was a budget overrun. Oh no more money was put into the economy with more things purchased and people hired and profits made by everyone working on and supplying the project, overruns are just so cataclysmicly terrible, please save us Rearden Steel That's the broken windows fallacy, right there. If cost overruns are good for the economy than everyone should support spending all the money in the world on the F-35. Or sports stadiums. Hey, the Olympics are a good idea for cities again!
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Aug 25, 2016 23:30
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Phanatic posted:Huh? The Internet started as a defense project and therefore the fact that I'm using the internet proves that if the government built nuclear plants it would be less expensive than it is for private utilities to build nuclear plants? Once again, your entire life relies on government projects to exist.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:33
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fishmech posted:Once again, your entire life relies on government projects to exist. And again, if your definition of "works just fine" includes "meets the design goals sufficiently to allow people to survive" and takes no account of how much money it cost to do those things or how efficiently it did them, then private construction of nuclear plants also works just fine and there's no reason to change anything. If you want to accept a claim that the government will do a better job of building nuclear plants, it's up to you to support that claim. As you've been asked to do. And have not.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:38
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Phanatic posted:And again, if your definition of "works just fine" includes "meets the design goals sufficiently to allow people to survive" and takes no account of how much money it cost to do those things or how efficiently it did them, then private construction of nuclear plants also works just fine and there's no reason to change anything. If you want to accept a claim that the government will do a better job of building nuclear plants, it's up to you to support that claim. As you've been asked to do. And have not. You haven't done anything to show private industry would have less cost overruns, you've just jerked off over how you hate the government. You're free to move to the Islamic State if you don't want that pesky government holding you down though!
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Aug 25, 2016 23:41
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Phanatic posted:That's the broken windows fallacy, right there. If cost overruns are good for the economy than everyone should support spending all the money in the world on the F-35. Or sports stadiums. Hey, the Olympics are a good idea for cities again! There are issues with wanton waste of course; infrastructure projects are ultimately macroeconomic projects and if they are consuming a disproportionate amount of resources that leaves less for other projects and need, that's an issue, but what you're whining about is a loving 20% cash cost overrun and trying to imply that's literally the same thing as macroeconomic waste, when they are not even close to the same thing. The problem with F-35s is how much human labor and material resources they consume that are better put elsewhere. I mean gently caress, that you even have that 20% figure in the first place should tell you something. We know we underestimate the budget for roads because we know what we need to promise to get the green light. The people giving the green light know these proposals lowball the cost. I happily support all public transit projects even though none of them come in under budget because at even 2-3x the proposed cost, they're still worth it. Seriously, Ayn Rand was a hack with a lovely philosophy and the sooner you get over her the sooner you can get to the "gently caress, what was I thinking?" phase and live a better life, please give it a try!
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Aug 25, 2016 23:44
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Phanatic posted:That's the broken windows fallacy, right there. If cost overruns are good for the economy than everyone should support spending all the money in the world on the F-35. Or sports stadiums. Hey, the Olympics are a good idea for cities again! Your choice is between expensive highways and no highways. Which would you prefer?
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Aug 25, 2016 23:46
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fishmech posted:You haven't done anything to show private industry would have less cost overruns, you've just jerked off over how you hate the government. You're free to move to the Islamic State if you don't want that pesky government holding you down though! I don't loving hate the government. What I hate are crony capitalism and private/public "partnerships" that give all the profit to the private corporation doing the work and all the risks to the taxpayer. I *never claimed* that private industry would have less overruns (except for the part where I actually did, in fact, cite Merrow's study that shows just that, which you totally loving ignored because it's much easier to blather on about Rand (who I also hate) than it is to actually confront evidence that contradicts your worldview), what I did was respond to someone who said "just have the government start building new plants directly" and asked what he meant by that. Are you actually capable of addressing rational arguments or do you have such a hate-on for Rand that it actually alters the words you see on your monitor? OwlFancier posted:Your choice is between expensive highways and no highways. This is such a bullshit false choice. Expensive doesn't mean "inefficiently expensive." Christ. Imagine that argument in Brazil or Argentina: "Your choice is between highways that are way more expensive than they should be because of massive corruption and endemic bribery, skimming, and fraud, and no highways at all." That's not the choice, it *is* possible to build highways for the amount that they should actually cost instead of some multiple of that driven by perverse incentives. Boten Anna posted:There are issues with wanton waste of course; infrastructure projects are ultimately macroeconomic projects and if they are consuming a disproportionate amount of resources that leaves less for other projects and need, that's an issue, but what you're whining about is a loving 20% cash cost overrun I'm not loving whining about anything, I'm asking whoever agrees with the claim that we should "just have the government start building new plants directly" to actually present evidence supporting that position. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 25, 2016 23:51
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Phanatic posted:I *never claimed* that private industry would have less overruns You did when you whined that we can't have the mean ol' government do it because they'd have cost overruns. Please, go spew your libertarian bullshit elsewhere. Phanatic posted:Merrow's study that shows just that This doesn't exist, because there's no study out there that says all government projects have to have overruns, as you claimed. Close your copy of Atlas Shrugged for once.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:54
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Phanatic posted:And again, if your definition of "works just fine" includes "meets the design goals sufficiently to allow people to survive" and takes no account of how much money it cost to do those things or how efficiently it did them, then private construction of nuclear plants also works just fine and there's no reason to change anything. If you want to accept a claim that the government will do a better job of building nuclear plants, it's up to you to support that claim. As you've been asked to do. And have not. ok let's look at major nuke countries that are also building stuff semi regularly (finland doesn't count, the shitshow at oikowherever is the first nuke in like 40 years to be built) 1)  freedom  statusnucular industry crushed under the yoke of big government: south korea, chinar, mother russia, india, glorious nippon (sort of iirc), france (sort of) nucular industry flourishing under the invisible hand of the free market (pbuh): USA USA USA, mediocre britain 2)  statusridiculous: ol blighty (no eu banana laws pls) expensive: ameriKKKa, france affordable: japaneseland, the korea which isn't best korea basically free: china, india do you see a pattern here suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Aug 26, 2016 |
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Aug 25, 2016 23:58
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fishmech posted:This doesn't exist, because there's no study out there that says all government projects have to have overruns, as you claimed. I never claimed that. Go check. Feel free to pay a homeless person to read the longer words to you out loud. I presented a number of large government programs that are enormous failures and asked, specifically, "Why would "just have the government build plants directly" work better than all those other things?" When you're reduced to making poo poo up about things your opponent said that are literally on the same screen as where you're lying about them, you should probably take a break. Or kill yourself.
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Aug 25, 2016 23:59
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Phanatic posted:I never claimed that. Phanatic posted:
Yes you did right here. Again, please shut your Ayn Rand books and stop whining about the government.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:03
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Phanatic posted:This is such a bullshit false choice. Expensive doesn't mean "inefficiently expensive." Christ. Imagine that argument in Brazil or Argentina: "Your choice is between highways that are way more expensive than they should be because of massive corruption and endemic bribery, skimming, and fraud, and no highways at all." That's not the choice, it *is* possible to build highways for the amount that they should actually cost instead of some multiple of that driven by perverse incentives. The issue with private financing for things is that they want to make a profit out of it. Which means that things like say, roads, which don't make profits and are actually big cost sinks, don't get privately financed. Unless you want to go full snow crash and have every road be a toll road. If you want a service which actually serves the public good, and doesn't really care very much about being able to make a profit, that's what the state is for. Energy infrastructure should be an example of that.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:04
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fishmech posted:Yes you did right here. Again, please shut your Ayn Rand books and stop whining about the government. Typical doesn't mean ubiquitous, you illiterate dipshit.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:04
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Phanatic posted:Typical doesn't mean ubiquitous Yes it does. And if you think it doesn't, you really don't understand English. Happening everywhere and constantly, that is to say, typical.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:06
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You misused a word and activated fishmechs trap card.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:08
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fishmech posted:Yes it does. And if you think it doesn't, you really don't understand English. Happening everywhere and constantly, that is to say, typical. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/typical "5. Conforming with what usually happens: The bus is late again? That's so typical!" loving illiterate. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/typical " normal for a person, thing, or group : average or usual : happening in the usual way" http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/typical "Having the distinctive qualities of a particular type of person or thing: a typical day a typical example of 1930s art deco" Note how distinct in meaning all those things are from "ubiquitous" or "uniform." OwlFancier posted:The issue with private financing for things is that they want to make a profit out of it. Which means that things like say, roads, which don't make profits and are actually big cost sinks, don't get privately financed. Unless you want to go full snow crash and have every road be a toll road. Literally none of that addresses what I said. Public financing of roads makes perfect sense, but that doesn't mean that "Oh well, looks like the project was horribly mismanaged and costs ballooned out of control and the road's not even done yet" like the shitfest tunnel being dug in Seattle makes sense. It doesn't mean that if you have want to stop caring about being able to make a profit all the other sources of waste just disappear. "You have two options: this dumbass loving tunnel dug right below the city's historic district that's going to cost multiples of what we told you it would cost when you voted for it and will still keep the city cut off from its own water front, or no highway." No, those *aren't* the only options. The issue with public financing for things is that it's not the person supervising those things who is paying for them, so there's less cost accountability. There are four types of spending: spending your money on something that will benefit you; spending your money on something that will benefit someone else; spending someone else's money on something that will benefit you; spending someone else's money on something that will benefit someone else. When you're spending money that's not yours, you have nowhere near the incentive to spend those dollars wisely. As is evidenced by every single person who votes to raise taxes on poor people to build a palace for some billionaire's sports team to play a game in; they'll tell you that *that's* really good for the economy, it gives people something they want, and so on, but they're wrong and they're lying. blowfish posted:1) How are you ranking these? You've got Britain as 'mediocre,' 'free market,' but Britain's nuclear industry was nationalized from the very start, it wasn't until 2010 that they gave licenses to private entities to build plants. Then Fukushima happened, none of those plants have been built. Every single bit of Britain's nuclear power infrastructure was a government build, and there's nothing stopping the British government from building more plants just like they did before. You've got Japan as 'crushed under the yoke' but the utilities in Japan are private, the reactors were built by private companies and operated by private companies. France's nuclear utility is a company that's 85% held by the government, and that's expensive, but South Korea's nuclear utility is a company that's 51% held by the government and that's affordable. I'm not seeing a clear pattern there. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 26, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 00:21
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If you are truly concerned with the inefficiency of energy infrastructure development I would suggest that some of the most important things for an effective national energy grid, or any national infrastructure project, would be to have: 1. Central planning for all infrastructure to ensure standardization where possible in both work, equipment, maintenence etc, so as to make subsequent work on the system doable with interchangeable engineers and ensure that all infrastructure can be relied upon, as well as that funding is available for work wherever it is needed. 2. In-house workers who are capable of doing work on the system to the prior standards, and functioning as something of a reserve labour army when needed to deal with new projects and disaster response. 3. Willingness to invest money up front where prudent, utilizing massive immediate capital supply to build things right first time and to finance large scale renewal and replacement projects to capitalize on economy of scale. Project oversight can draw from skills developed by the creation of 2. All of which are things that the state is very good at, and disparate private enterprises are not.
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Aug 26, 2016 00:23
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