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Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

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Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#31

Post by Scarblac »

nivenkos wrote: post #28
bojan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR held back a huge part of the world. The Baltics, the whole of Eastern Europe, East Germany, all suffered immensely under their influence, and are still feeling the consequences. The USSR created ruthless regimes all over the world, some of which are still standing: Cuba, North Korea. Even after the partial collapse of that Empire, Russia degraded to openly being a terrorist state, sending Wagnerites all over…

Putin is the chosen successor of Yeltsin, who was backed by the USA. I wouldn't pin the current state of Russia on the USSR - the Orthodox Church, etc. have far more influence. Your point is definitely true for the psuedo-occupied countries like Romania, Poland, the DDR, etc. though. My point wasn't to defend the USSR but that we need competition to drive progress. For example now the EU has almost none of its own in…

It's the Council that takes most of the decisions, and it's made up of the leaders of the national governments. They don't want it to be different, as that would mean giving up national power. The Commission is rather toothless in comparison, they can only carry out existing policy.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#32

Post by lentil_soup »

> in such an economy the majority of workers will be glad to take a bribe

> gesturing to our cameras, making a meaningful pat of his wallet inside his pocket

> It might have been the presence of the work crew that deterred this man ... Perhaps the team of workers were looting the place

I really hate this attitude, this feeling of superiority that because you're in a poorer country and you're rich and entitled you just go there and bribe people to satisfy your misery tourism. They wouldn't do this in say, London, but because it's some poor country it's cool to even brag about it.

And not only that, they assume everyone is up for a bribe and even when they refuse it's because of some even bigger scam happening.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#33

Post by ponector »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #7
eternauta3k wrote: post #3

Similar thing happened in Argentina: started to construct a nuclear power plant, stopped construction for 10 years. But it was eventually finished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atucha_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Atu... PS: Isn't it illegal for Americans to bribe people abroad? Why is this guy openly admitting to it?

I paid a bribe to get my cat out of quarantine in Nigeria when I lived in Lagos years ago. Nobody's coming after me for that. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes bribery a crime for business-related reasons. >Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to p…

The most interesting part is some bribes are not bribes by law. They call it facilitation payment! In legal terms there is nothing bad in paying corrupted employee of some government office to do his work. Imagine you had all papers correct for your cat, but they anyway would not release your cat from quarantine, without any reason. Then your facilitation payment is not a bribe.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#34

Post by illiarian »

walrus01 wrote: post #30
illiarian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.

Obviously you do need other base load generation as well. Air conditioner demand is also lower when there's no direct sunlight, and at night.

Air conditioning is not the only power consumer.

If your production goes from 100% to 0%, it's not just air conditioning that will be affected.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#35

Post by pydry »

illiarian wrote: post #22
walrus01 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given sunshine in Cuba it might not be necessary to finish. The for-profit grid feeding giant solar power station in Rajasthan, India is buying power at a rate under 3 cents per kWh, and the private capital that put up the money to build it still has an ROI that pencils out. A hundred million dollars of ground mount photovoltaics in Cuba might do a lot more good than spending money to finish a possibly obsolete desig…

It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.

It's 20% of the cost not 20% less.

Matching solar and wind power with storage or peakers is still cheaper.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#36

Post by illiarian »

pydry wrote: post #35
illiarian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.

It's 20% of the cost not 20% less. Matching solar and wind power with storage or peakers is still cheaper.

You're assuming this much storage exists.

And I'd love to see all the calculations that include the need to overbuild, the need for storage etc.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#37

Post by pjc50 »

nivenkos wrote: post #28
bojan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR held back a huge part of the world. The Baltics, the whole of Eastern Europe, East Germany, all suffered immensely under their influence, and are still feeling the consequences. The USSR created ruthless regimes all over the world, some of which are still standing: Cuba, North Korea. Even after the partial collapse of that Empire, Russia degraded to openly being a terrorist state, sending Wagnerites all over…

Putin is the chosen successor of Yeltsin, who was backed by the USA. I wouldn't pin the current state of Russia on the USSR - the Orthodox Church, etc. have far more influence. Your point is definitely true for the psuedo-occupied countries like Romania, Poland, the DDR, etc. though. My point wasn't to defend the USSR but that we need competition to drive progress. For example now the EU has almost none of its own in…

> the EU has almost none of its own industry

This is just wrong.

> there are no EU-wide elections

This is also wrong.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#38

Post by pydry »

illiarian wrote: post #36
pydry wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 20% of the cost not 20% less. Matching solar and wind power with storage or peakers is still cheaper.

You're assuming this much storage exists. And I'd love to see all the calculations that include the need to overbuild, the need for storage etc.

No, I'm assuming it can be built because the unit economics work better.

Back in 2013 I remember people used to constantly trash solar and wind because it was 1-2% of the grid anywhere, max, while nuclear power was often 10-30% (or 70% in France). We're at that same point with storage.

Since then we've had a decline in nuclear power due to the high cost and enormous growth in renewables due to it being 5x cheaper.

Unit economics prevailed with solar and wind and theyll prevail with storage. solar + wind + 8 hours storage is not just the cheapest way to get to a 98% carbon free grid it's also the fastest.

Gas is still the cheapest "battery" by far though, which is why so many countries use it as baseload and peaking. Pumped storage, batteries and syngas combined only make renewables a cheaper baseload/peaker than nuclear power.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#39

Post by pjc50 »

lentil_soup wrote: post #32

> in such an economy the majority of workers will be glad to take a bribe > gesturing to our cameras, making a meaningful pat of his wallet inside his pocket > It might have been the presence of the work crew that deterred this man ... Perhaps the team of workers were looting the place I really hate this attitude, this feeling of superiority that because you're in a poorer country and you're rich and entitled you jus…

The London bribery rates are higher. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#40

Post by pjc50 »

dsign wrote: post #9

Cuba's unfinished power plant is the least of their problems. At this point, Cuba's problems are so big that they seem insurmountable. To see what I mean, imagine that tomorrow the Communist Party is dissolved, a new democratic constitution is installed, and following that, the country elects a true parliament and a new executive. Is it hard to believe that all of that will ever happen? Yes, it is very unlikely. But…

> Nationalized properties are not the only litigation targets over anything Cuban, because the government from 1959 to the date took a lot of loans that didn't repay. The international legal system would find ways to ask for that money back to any future government, corporation, or individual living in the island

That would indeed turn it into Haiti, just as Haiti was made to pay for expropriated property (human beings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy

If the world, or more specifically the US, wants a free and democratic Cuba, it's going to have to agree to a blank slate and not try to take back the pound of flesh. "Come back to the international order, we'll impoverish you for generations" is not a tempting offer.

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