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Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

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Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#331

Post by Dylan16807 »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #316
fyfy18 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is electricity prices went up with usage? So you get X kWh per month for one price, then after that it's 1.5x the rate. You could just do this on residential rates only so businesses aren't affected.

Uber surge pricing on a basic living utility? No thanks. Same issue as with fuel - the wealthy people who are often the most wasteful with resources (driving Hummers and V8/10 SUVs and cars, private jets, etc.) are the ones who would be affected the least because the price wouldn't impact their habits. Meanwhile, a middle/low-class family would be paying 1.5x the rate to keep the lights on home.

Price based on monthly total use is the opposite of surge pricing.

If those wealthy people are happy to pay a 5x or 10x rate, you can use it to install tons of renewables (with batteries). That's not something to complain about.

> Meanwhile, a middle/low-class family would be paying 1.5x the rate to keep the lights on home.

If it's not low, middle, or upper class, who do you imagine is paying the 1x rate?

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#332

Post by Dylan16807 »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #275
ggm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right great Cheops, king of kings, we should stick to bronze swords, the next 100,000 year risk profile of iron smelting hasn't been drawn up yet. Nobody in any environment or endeavour in history applies 100k years risk assessment on any activity. This is green fundamentalism and next comes mandatory veganism and forced sterilization.

Nice series of strawman and ad-hominem.

You're going to respond to the dumb post but not the people that gave sound arguments in favor of the chart's direction?

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#335

Post by Bajeezus »

adultSwim wrote: post #334

Bill Gates has shamelessly uses his philanthropy to further his own interests, similar to how he abused Microsoft's monopoly power in the 90s.

If you want to call advancing causes that are objectively beneficial for society "furthering his own interests," then sure.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#336

Post by labster »

Recurecur wrote: post #268
labster wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I love about HN, instant access to experts in the field, so we don't have to argue our assumptions. I guess it's unsurprising that uranium operations run a lot cleaner than fossil fuel extraction, given the politics involved. I'm not against fission power itself, but being in California makes me kind of a NIMBY on the issue. All you need is somewhere with water and without active fault lines, and nope, n…

"I'm not against fission power itself, but being in California makes me kind of a NIMBY on the issue. All you need is somewhere with water and without active fault lines, and nope, not seeing a good spot." The TerraPower design, and many other of the next-gen designs, don't require water cooling. That greatly expands siting options. You could have the plants out in the desert, or on other less desirable real estate.…

Possibly hopeful, but the energy market in California is kind of a mess right now between the Community Choice Energy collectives, PG&E declaring bankruptcy, and SoCal Edison being snafu as usual. You need a lot of capital for nuclear, and with a fractured market, I don't know how it comes together. The only CCA with enough credit rating to attempt it is Marin Clean Energy, and I'm not trusting an area with that high of an anti-vaxxer population to consider nuclear rationally.

In other ways, the Democratic coalition in California is so big that they can afford to annoy one end of the base. But at the same time, pro-nuclear is not a natural stance for an administration trying to balance environment and housing development.

My perspective is as as a former meteorologist and climate scientist, and currently involved in the Democratic party. We're in such an oil town that the high school colors are black and gold, the birthplace of Unocal -- but people are so anti-oil here now that we'd love to make a switch. You know, as long as gas prices at the pump don't increase.

I've talked to enough people that I think the politics is doable but hard, but the capital man, I dunno. Maybe that comes from Bill Gates.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#337

Post by wallace_f »

dragonwriter wrote: post #321
wallace_f wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from the article: >The lessons that we learned out of Libya giving up its nukes … is, unfortunately: If you had nukes, never give them up. If you don’t have them, get them.” This quotr misled me. What I found from another source is that they had a nuclear weapons program according to another source 'likely to develop a nuke in 3-7 years'

Yeah, there is a huge difference between nukes, which have a deterrent capacity, and a nuke program, which is pretty much an anti-deterrent, especially when it comes to US action.

That seems to be the opposite point which the article is making since Libya and Gadaffi were attacked an utter anyways.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#338

Post by AnthonyMouse »

strainer wrote: post #296
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if "it'll never happen" (because it can't or hasn't happened) is true, then insurance actuaries could establish that and there would be no problem with insuring Calculating an actuarial probability was never the problem. You can't know the lower bound on the probability of something that has never actually happened, but you can calculate an upper bound based on the period of time it hasn't happened, which is all yo…

The annual revenue alone of the worlds ten largest insurance companies is about 20 thousand billion USD [1]. This sector is prepared to cover larger risks than most governments - for a somewhat competitive profitable amount. > Calculating an actuarial probability was never the problem. Of course is wasn't - revealing and paying the resultant premiums is the problem, which is why governments make alternative arrangeme…

> The annual revenue alone of the worlds ten largest insurance companies is about 20 thousand billion USD [1]. This sector is prepared to cover larger risks than most governments - for a somewhat competitive profitable amount.

I think you mean two thousand billion. Which is problematic since there are more than twenty nuclear power stations in the US (each of which would need to be insured), even if that wasn't revenue.

Insurance companies are competitive. If they take in a hundred billion dollars, they pay out more than ninety in claims the same year. They can't pay a claim using the money they're already using to pay other types of claims.

> Of course is wasn't - revealing and paying the resultant premiums is the problem, which is why governments make alternative arrangements for nuclear.

The resultant premiums wouldn't be that bad if it was only the risk of a nuclear disaster they had to account for.

But a smart insurance company is going to take into account that US courts have a way of connecting sympathetic victims to deep-pocketed or well-insured corporations, even when there is only a tangential relationship with them, when it's the only way to save a devastated community. For example, if Fukushima had happened in the US, there is a decent chance that courts would have tried to tack a lot of the cost of the damage from the tsunami on the plant operators. Or for another example, PG&E and the recent wildfires in California.

That's a different kind of risk, but it's one an insurance company that doesn't want to go bankrupt has to account for, and it's also the one that makes buying that amount of insurance prohibitively expensive in the private market.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#339

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jacobush wrote: post #269
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're exposed to enough radiation for the effects not to be "marginal and diffuse" then you can detect it with your senses. High dose radiation will literally burn you. People misunderstand the risk. The amount of radiation you need to be exposed to for a 50% chance of getting cancer would be a fatal dose from radiation poisoning. The way people end up with cancer isn't by one person getting a large dose, it's by…

I'm not so sure about that. Gamma radiation is one thing, getting a bunch of alpha and beta emitters more or less permanently stuck in your body, is another.

> I'm not so sure about that. Gamma radiation is one thing, getting a bunch of alpha and beta emitters more or less permanently stuck in your body, is another.

About the only practical way to do that is to eat them, at which point you're in the same category as any other adulterated food. How is caesium any scarier than prions or mercury or various pesticides or a thousand different chemical carcinogens?

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#340

Post by strainer »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #338
strainer wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annual revenue alone of the worlds ten largest insurance companies is about 20 thousand billion USD [1]. This sector is prepared to cover larger risks than most governments - for a somewhat competitive profitable amount. > Calculating an actuarial probability was never the problem. Of course is wasn't - revealing and paying the resultant premiums is the problem, which is why governments make alternative arrangeme…

> The annual revenue alone of the worlds ten largest insurance companies is about 20 thousand billion USD [1]. This sector is prepared to cover larger risks than most governments - for a somewhat competitive profitable amount. I think you mean two thousand billion. Which is problematic since there are more than twenty nuclear power stations in the US (each of which would need to be insured), even if that wasn't reven…

Sorry right I did overcount that. But that is still 2 trillion USD - revenue per year. It establishes the scale of this sectors financial clout. Insurers payed out $135 billion USB in North America last year for natural disasters, and business is continuing as usual. Nuclear plants liability are capped in north america at 13 billion USD the nuclear industry is simply exempt from arranging full cover - unlike other industries. Its not really viable to contend the arrangements are not exceptional and are beyond the capabilities and interest of modern financial arrangements.

This statement > "which is problematic since there are more than twenty nuclear power stations in the US" shows a misunderstanding about the insurance business. It is not necessary to have assets to cover worst case events everywhere simultaneously. I expect you do understand that but have not given this subject your best attention.

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