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Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

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Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#51

Post by AstralStorm »

illiarian wrote: post #34
walrus01 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In particular, one can calculate minimum base load and amortized base load.

Critical infrastructure informs minimum base load. For example parts of defense grid, AC when disabling it would kill people, medical systems, certain lighting, running and monitoring the power plants, certain kind of industrial cooling, mining safety equipment like air and gas pumps, certain sluices in regions with flooding. More or less anything that if turned off would or could immediately cause a catastrophe.

Amortized base load adds some other things that just cannot be off for long or you incur huge restart or lack of function costs. Examples would be microchip manufacturing, water treatment, key mass transportation, oil pumping and drilling.

A lot of amortized base loads are on week scale rather than day, so they tend to be reasonably solar friendly, but less wind friendly.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#52

Post by 0xDEF »

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…

>Yeltsin, who was backed by the USA

Russian victimhood is so tiring. You forget the part where they blame Bill Clinton for causing child prostitution in 1990s Russia.

The "US caused 1990s Russian chaos" narrative is based on an 1996 IMF loan and Yeltsin hiring American political marketers for his 1996 reelection campaign. But by 1996 Russia was already in utter chaos.

In 1996 Russia asked for a peanut $10 billion IMF loan and the US (being the biggest IMF contributor) were among the countries that approved the loan. Yeltsin was also impressed by big US-style political campaigns that he hired American political marketers.

I fail to see how either of that means the US backed Yeltsin or that the US caused the 1990s chaos in Russia.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#53

Post by goodpoint »

gfiorav wrote: post #19
nivenkos wrote: post #17

Hopefully it will be finished one day. It's a shame how much the world has taken a step back with the collapse of the USSR and the rise of US unipolarity. The once-great Buran space shuttles lie derelict in Kazakhstan and Russia (not even in a museum!). The huge An-225 that took it to space has been destroyed in the Russia-Ukraine war. Investment in nuclear power has collapsed as projects like this show (and Germany'…

The US still invests heavily in defense, which props up STEM. I agree it was nicer when the goal was space though.

"nicer"?!

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#54

Post by ahelwer »

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…

It sounds like all of these problems are completely invented by people who are not Cubans?

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#55

Post by illiarian »

AstralStorm wrote: post #51
illiarian wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In particular, one can calculate minimum base load and amortized base load. Critical infrastructure informs minimum base load. For example parts of defense grid, AC when disabling it would kill people, medical systems, certain lighting, running and monitoring the power plants, certain kind of industrial cooling, mining safety equipment like air and gas pumps, certain sluices in regions with flooding. More or less any…

What you're saying is: rolling blackouts are totally fine because no one will die if they sit in the dark for a few hours.

BTW, turning a lot stuff off and then turning it back on strains the grid immensely.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#56

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

I don't think such massive political change must happen overnight. A country needs time to learn to deal with democracy. See what happened to Russia for example. It was only a true democracy for a year or two until Jeltsin's coup.

And the Cuban regime doesn't seem so bad anymore. They have the second-most doctors per capita in the world (the first is one of the rich oil countries, I forget which). Good education too.

I don't know why the US is still sanctioning them so heavily. Other than 'communism bad'. They do seem to be looking after their people. And they haven't been a nuclear threat since the Cuba crisis.

Without the sanctions they'd have a much easier time and could transition to a democracy much more gracefully. Take a 10 year timeframe for example to transition instead of doing this big bang.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#57

Post by danielfoster »

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…

I agree but think the only issue here is the use of the word “bribe.” Some places have a culture of paying “grease money” to get things done.

This is common behavior in poor areas with little tourism simply because no formal system for officially visiting exists and people do not earn enough to survive. These small payments are not seen as “bribes” in the western sense.

For example I just visited Guinea in Western Africa. On my first day I visited the Grand Mosque. There was no ticket booth or tour guide. Instead I had to pay “big boss,” a guard who showed us around.

I then went to the botanical gardens, which as it turned out had been turned into a military post. An unofficial tour was offered and of course payment was expected.

At the airport, security staff also asked for money. This was refused.

All of these things happened in plain view. I wouldn’t view it in the same light as paying a bribe, though westerners make no distinction. “Courtesy payment” or “tip” are not correct, either, but probably more accurate than “bribe.”

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#58

Post by wkat4242 »

zamnos wrote: post #10
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a mouthful of a sentence. Wikipedia's summary is a bit more direct. > The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. So if your cat is the star performer of your cat circus show business, you could have technically broken the law :p

It's not really a business interest though.

Re: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

#60

Post by zamnos »

wkat4242 wrote: post #58
zamnos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a mouthful of a sentence. Wikipedia's summary is a bit more direct. > The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. So if your cat is the star performer of your cat circus show business, you could have technically broken the law :p

It's not really a business interest though.

If the government is holding the gear for your show in customs, and is going to hold it for 3 months, but with a payment it can be released next week and your show can happen and you make a lot of money from ticket sales, that sounds very much like a business interest, and thus a bribe according to the FCPA. That the "gear" is a live cat in my ludicrous example seems immaterial of it's a bribe or not.
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