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Oh really? Payback period: The Energy Information Administration lists average U.S. residential electricity prices at 11.23 cents per kwh, as of February 2009. A turbine that puts out 2000 kwh a year saves $224.60 annually at that price, making the payback period just under 20 years on a $4500 panel. (The government rebate would lower the payback period to about 14 years.)" 3.5.4 Payback
"The detailed analysis done regarding the payback shows that with good wind resource at the installed site, the payback for a 15kW wind turbine will normally be about 10 years. Further with the usage of additional storage facilities like battery would increase an additional payback period of 13 years."

Meanwhile the nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsides. "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

if you don't think this impetus should come from the public sector, well, perhaps you should remember where the Internet came from - just one example of a multitude of technologies that have been borne out of public sector research.

In the US how many people disagree with the internet versus those who disagree with nuclear power? Eventually a network like the internet would have been developed but would any nuclear power plants have been built if left up to a free market? The nuclear industry is hooked on subsides. Without subsidies CompuServe was created by an insurance company in 1969. Then throughout the 1970s Bulletin board systems or BSSes sprang up. Also during the '70s a number of different online services started operating.

Falcon

WWII pulled us out of the great depression(which by the way seems to have been caused largely by over confidence in Free Market Deregulation.) The "New Deal" managed kept us from collapsing into abject anarchy.

You should do your own homework. Some economists believe the New Deal made the Great Depression worse than it would have been. FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate. Obama repeating mistakes of Great Depression.

What we face today is a throw back to 1929. Same shit.

What we have now is different than in 1929. In 1929-30 congress passed and President Herbert Hoover signed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, even though more than a thousand economists warned him to veto it, which slowed international trade. When the US passed this act other nations passed their own protectionist laws. US export businesses watched as their exports shrank, they thus had to lay off workers or went out of business. This harmed other businesses such as suppliers. Like it or not international trade is necessary to a thriving economy today and has been that way for a long tyme.

As for Mr. Fusion? How about some cleaner cheaper fission first.

Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies. Even in countries that do not have the US's environmental regulations nuclear power isn't profitable without subsidies. "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

And that's a reprint on the Free Market CATO Institute of a Forbes magazine article. Finland's Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant's reactor 3, being built by the French government owned Areva, was due to be compleated this year but now is not scheduled to be compleated until 2012. It is already $2.4bn dollars (1.7bn euros) over budget.

You ask about cheaper energy, the cheapest and cleanest energy is the negawatt. Unfortunately that depends on people conserving power and most Americans will not do that.

Falcon

What about nuclear, you never hear about state wide blackouts in France.

You don't hear about how nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies either. Or how "Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Sure you'll need a non-retarded grid to get that power everywhere but it seams like your grid is in need of a rework anyway

It's estimated that because of the poor condition of the electrical grid in the US it costs up to $83 billion a year in loses to business. No matter what generation technology is used the grid still has to be upgraded. That was one of the few things I agreed with Obama on, however he hasn't done anything about it yet. Like so many of his other promises.

do you really have DC power lines in places?

In Europe too. High Voltage DC current is terrific for transmitting electricity long distances, there is less loss of power with DC over long distances than with AC. DC is used widely by off gridders. If the electricity is generated as DC why convert it to AC?

Falcon

True, but one would imagine this would skew the results in countries where drugs or prostitution are illegal more than it would where they aren't.

As for the citations requested above, I don't know much about prostitution, but Glenn Greenwald wrote a white paper for the Cato Institute in which he discusses Portugal's success with decriminalization of all drugs. There's a link to it on this page: http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=5887 .

On a side note I don't know how much piracy is being turned into a vice. My sense is that very few people associate any shame with it.

tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. Why should a group of "concerned citizens" be able to block development on someone else's property? If there were an accident or a meltdown, or whatever other problem might come about from it, let the aggrieved party sue the daylights out of them. That is the free market feedback mechanism preventing harm to people.

Do you also support the removal of the subsidies nuclear power gets? Nuclear Power is Hooked on Subsidies. Wall Street would not fund nuclear power without subsides. Notice how at the bottom of the Forbes article, hosted on a free markets institutes's servers, it says:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Now if you had said that about offshore wind farms, like the one Ted Kennedy opposed, I'd agree.

Falcon

I note you don't mention nuclear, which is the only power source that doesn't produce CO2 and costs the same as coal.

I have to disagree with you here. Nuclear power is not cheap, it only seems cheap because it get massive subsidies. Fact is is Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies. Without subsides Wall Street would not fund nuclear power. Not even in China, France, India, or Russia does the market decide what and where nuclear power is built, governments do. Take away all subsidies, including for coal and oil, and alternative energy source prices will be more comparable.

Oh, and nuclear power does produce CO2. Producing the fuel creates CO2, as does building the plants.

Falcon

Portugal. Decriminalized *all* drugs (including heroin etc) in 2001. With considerable success from almost any public health or criminological perspective:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124061360462654683.html
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

As I understand it, they're under sporadic pressure by the US and Sweden and other holdouts for demonstrably failed drug policy to revert to the bad old days, but the benefits have been so significant neither the Partido Socialista or any of its viable competition has shown any real sign of buckling.

I don't see why libertarians object to this?

Most don't. The ones who do are either confused by the occasional Marxist-sounding rhetoric used by some free software advocates, or are actually corporate shills pretending to be libertarians. The Cato Institute has some excellent papers on the topic: they support free software in general, and oppose software patents and the DMCA because they stifle innovation and competition.

I don't see why libertarians object to this?

Most don't. The ones who do are either confused by the occasional Marxist-sounding rhetoric used by some free software advocates, or are actually corporate shills pretending to be libertarians. The Cato Institute has some excellent papers on the topic: they support free software in general, and oppose software patents and the DMCA because they stifle innovation and competition.

A better op-ed on this very subject was published by libertarian think thank The Cato Institute over two years ago: http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/070622-tk.html

I read a convincing article on how when you consider all costs, nuclear is the most expensive option per kilowatt.

The Nuclear industry is Hooked on Subsidies.

Falcon

Yes nuclear is a good idea if they can figure out how to make the entire life cycle work in the United States. Solar and Wind are also good ideas, but have to be coupled with more efficient devices since it will initially cost more to produce the electricity.

You say nuclear is a good idea and in the next breath say solar and wind are more expensive. In fact the Nuclear industry is Hooked on Subsidies. Without subsidies Wall Street would not invest in nuclear power.

Falcon

Oh, notice the link is to a free market think tank which reprinted a "Forbes" article. It is not from any sort of anti-nuke group.

Umm, yeah it does happen all the time. How is this post insightful?
Sometimes they kill you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting
And as far as dogs, it does happen all the time, here is an article about some: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6339
Or find your own: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=police+kill+dog
I seriously do not understand how you got modded insightful for being ignorant.

How many times has that happened? Once that I know of.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

The above map isn't comprehensive, not by far. Nonetheless, it will inform you of many more such instances than "once".

"Once that I know of. In a country of 300+ million people"

Here's a map of about a hundred others.

Still think that's pretty good?

Go do some research. There has been a great number of these types of events. No knock warrants, false 911 calls, SWAT raids on the wrong address. There have been tons of innocent people harassed and more than a few killed. This guy was actually lucky it was his dogs.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6344

Of course this particular scenario is unique, but botched SWAT raids are common. Take a look at http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

Nuclear power is an amazing technology that would solve many of the world's power problems

In a free market Wall Street would not finance nuclear power, the Nuclear Power Industry is "Hooked on Subsidies". Notice what that article even says of other nations "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors." In Finland Olkiluoto 3, being built by the French government owned Areva and Siemens so there is no lack of experience, is 3 year behind schedule and "about $2.4bn dollars (1.7bn euros) over budget."

"In Flamanville, France, a clone of the Finnish reactor now under construction is also behind schedule and overbudget."

"In the United States, Florida and Georgia have changed state laws to raise electricity rates so that consumers will foot some of the bill for new nuclear plants in advance, before construction even begins."

In a free market you don't pay for what you don't use, and it would give you choices as to who supplies you. I'd rather pay a little extra for electricity from a solar or wind farm than I would to be forced to pay for nuclear power.

Oh and solar as well as wind can provide a lot of energy, in the US and Canada, with geothermal serving as a baseload.

They're fighting it because the morons of the world will think that irradiation makes the food dangerous.

Some people are quite rationally concerned because there have been no long term studies on the effects of microwaves on plants, or people, yet studies have shown microwaves can alter DNA.

Falcon

... is just as bad as a person who's murdered his own countrymen for decades.

Ahh, like Saddam Hussein? To be consistent I'm sure you have praised Bush for bringing him to justice? And what, no mention of cop-killer Bill Ayers, buddy to Our Dear Leader?

You have called me an idiot 3 times. It has been my experience that those who resort to name-calling do so because they are intellectually bankrupt, and so no offense is taken. I know (as do you apparently) there is clearly nothing substantive behind your feeble attempts to belittle my intelligence.

And now, regarding your quote from the Wik ... I call BS. Yes, that quote appears on the Wik, but did you happen to go look at that quote in context? Well I did. I went to the BNC's web page (via the reference provided in the Wik article). Here is a quote from their policy statement on healthcare:

For decades, the British National Health Service was looked upon by the rest of the world as one of the most successful state run health services in the world. Today, it is a laughing stock. The NHS is critically ill. NHS Trusts are sacking staff, closing wards, cancelling operations and refusing patients vital life-saving drugs. Meanwhile, 'health tourists' are costing the NHS £2 billion a year, and diseases such as TB and AIDS are on the increase as a result of immigration ... Sixty percent of NHS staff are bureaucrats, and there are now more managers in the NHS than beds -- with many earning more than £100,000 per year.

In short, while socialized medicine may be laudable from a naive and idealistic perspective, every implementation to date has become, or will soon be, a disaster. And this is no surprise, because that is what happens when you socialize anything. Quality drops through the floor, and costs rise out of control. And why is that? Human nature. Where there is no competition and no profit incentive people lose their initiative and become lazy. Look at the USPS ($11B loss last year), or public schools (shudder), or insert your favorite government agency ... RMV? DHS? FEMA? Or instead of those tangential agencies, let's consider instead a direct analogy ... Medicare? Costs are spiraling out of control -- it is a ticking timebomb. Here are some interesting references (warning, they are not written in crayon):

http://www.reason.com/news/show/29339.html
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3700

The only remedy will be to severely rationing care, after first taxing the crap out of "the rich" until they are no longer rich, find even more creative ways to hide their income, or leave the country.

No thanks.

There are costs to upgrading transmission lines, but they're nowhere _near_ the costs of running lines where there weren't any before.

The only differences are erection of towers and granting of easements or rights of way. In places where cables already exist the cables need to be replaced with higher capacity cables. And of course where there is no capacity everything has to be put in place, however with current problems costing $80 Billion plus annually, those costs are cheap.

My problem was that you kept implying wind as costs that are a lot higher than building new reactors. And I didn't even address the fact that nuclear power would not be profitable without subsidies, the nuclear industry is Hooked on Subsidies. Notice that that link is not something environmental but points to a reprint of a business magazine article on a free markets think-tank website. Especially notice where it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

>Cato is a *libertarian* think tank.

Oh really? Read A Path to Fiscal Sanity by Jagadeesh Gokhale.

I've never seen a more tepid call for action with so few concrete ideas. Spend less? Maybe? Kinda? I thought libertarianism was clear-cut for smaller government.

I would consider Mises.org to be representative of true supporters of the free-market.

"Imagine the outcry if the courts were to legalize patents on English prose. Suddenly, you could get a "literary patent" on novels employing a particular kind of plot twist..."

Copyright on literary concepts is strong enough to survive conversion from book to film, even when nothing remains of the original dialogue. It's strong enough to cover original sequels. Read Harry Potter and the Unauthorized Sequel. The concept of "scenes a faire" covers the concept of literary "prior art" and prevents re-copyrighting the obvious. This is generally considered workable, although it took some litigation in the 1980s before the law settled down as regarding video game "look and feel".

"Small businesses and nonprofit organizations far removed from the traditional software industry have IT departments producing potentially infringing software. The Brookings Institution's Ben Klemens has" documented that this is not a theoretical problem"

Following the "documented" link leads to a set of PowerPoint slides by someone listed as "Senior Statistician, Mood and Affective Disorders, NIMH". (Where does the Cato Institute find these people?) He's grumbling about infringement lawsuits directed against the Green Bay Packers, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods, J. Crew, Linens and Things, McDonalds, Dole Food, and Oprah Winfrey. All occupy dominant positions in their industry. (Technically, the Green Bay Packers are a "small business", with only 189 employees, but the business is valued at $911 million.) None is a nonprofit.

Like these folks, I don't believe the "settled science" or "scientific consensus" claimed to exist actually does.

http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/cato_climate.pdf

Distributed power generation anyone?

You're talking to the wrong crowd. All they care about are the massive nuclear power plants that are Hooked on Subsidies.

Falcon

Show me safe nuclear power.

How about any other mass produced energy source (not solar).

Ah, disallow an energy source that can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs and 35% of it's total energy by 2050. Okay, let's use wind, which could supply 20% of the US's electricity by 2030.

Stack the deck against alternatives when nuclear power would not survive without subsidies.

Falcon

It's been how long since we've built a new nuclear plant in the US? Coal is being attacked at every turn, solar and wind still being too expensive and too inefficient to meet current demands.

Remove subsides for coal and nuclear power and solar and wind are more competitive. If not for government businesses would not build nuclear power plants, the nuclear power industry is "Hooked on Subsidies". "Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies".

Falcon

Obama is not saving anything but his @$$ but that is another discussion.

I never said otherwise. Or are you attributing to me things I didn't say?

Make money generating electricity without government involvement burning coal, you bet, no problem.

Coal does get subsidies. Here's a speech by Rep Edward Markey, "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" detailing some of the subsidies, not just coal but other energy courses get. And "Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies" The freemarket CATO Institute has more: The USDA provides low interest loans for coal fired power plants. Coal also gets subsidies for coal-to-liquids, synthetic fuels. The EIA [pdf] reports that in 1999 energy got subsides of $4 Billion. Of that oil got $312 Million, coal $489 Million, and natural gas $1.2 Billion. And all forms of alternative energy got $1.1 Billion.

If the drill answer is not intellectually dishonest, go trim a lawn with your drill, maybe even try driving it down the road.

Now I believe you are trolling and will not be responding anymore.

Falcon

Obama is not saving anything but his @$$ but that is another discussion.

I never said otherwise. Or are you attributing to me things I didn't say?

Make money generating electricity without government involvement burning coal, you bet, no problem.

Coal does get subsidies. Here's a speech by Rep Edward Markey, "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" detailing some of the subsidies, not just coal but other energy courses get. And "Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies" The freemarket CATO Institute has more: The USDA provides low interest loans for coal fired power plants. Coal also gets subsidies for coal-to-liquids, synthetic fuels. The EIA [pdf] reports that in 1999 energy got subsides of $4 Billion. Of that oil got $312 Million, coal $489 Million, and natural gas $1.2 Billion. And all forms of alternative energy got $1.1 Billion.

If the drill answer is not intellectually dishonest, go trim a lawn with your drill, maybe even try driving it down the road.

Now I believe you are trolling and will not be responding anymore.

Falcon

Obama is not saving anything but his @$$ but that is another discussion.

I never said otherwise. Or are you attributing to me things I didn't say?

Make money generating electricity without government involvement burning coal, you bet, no problem.

Coal does get subsidies. Here's a speech by Rep Edward Markey, "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" detailing some of the subsidies, not just coal but other energy courses get. And "Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies" The freemarket CATO Institute has more: The USDA provides low interest loans for coal fired power plants. Coal also gets subsidies for coal-to-liquids, synthetic fuels. The EIA [pdf] reports that in 1999 energy got subsides of $4 Billion. Of that oil got $312 Million, coal $489 Million, and natural gas $1.2 Billion. And all forms of alternative energy got $1.1 Billion.

If the drill answer is not intellectually dishonest, go trim a lawn with your drill, maybe even try driving it down the road.

Now I believe you are trolling and will not be responding anymore.

Falcon

I really don't think this is the end of the world. And the best part- for us nuclear fans- is that a big electricity crunch would be just the stimulus needed to build new plants. I know it takes a while to get them online but the transition to electric vehicles won't happen overnight, either.

Ah but nuclear power plants can't be built as fast as wind turbines can. Doing a quite search the Salem Nuclear Power Plant was the largest electrical generation nuclear powerplant. It has 2 reactors, one capable of generating 1,174 MW and the other 1,130 MW for a total of 2,304 MW. However if you erect 20 5 megawatt wind turbines a month in 2 years you'll add 2,400 MW of capacity. Could a nuclear powerplant be built and brought online in 2 years?

Backed by French government loans Areva, also owned by the French government, started building the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland in 2005. Originally it was scheduled to be built in 2009 as "the world's largest and safest nuclear plant". Today, it's not scheduled to be finished until 2012 at the earliest, and it's 2 to 3 billion dollars over budget. Fact is is cost overruns for nuclear powerplants considerably add to their costs. As the freemarket institute CATO reprint of a "Forbes" magazine article says, the nuclear power industry is "Hooked on Subsidies". Notice where it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

You can't have it both ways. Either there is a market for lower-paying jobs and the government is accomplishing something by making it illegal, or else there isn't and the government's regulations on the matter are thus pointless.

This is my point: there isn't very much of a market for substandard jobs. The minimum wage (at least in my country) doesn't affect many people and never has. It just prevents abuse in a small minority of cases. In some industries, the only significant competition for low-paid jobs comes from foreign workers from places like Poland, but that's a separate issue and gets into the EU's madness in expanding as fast as it has to include countries with vastly different economic strength, which doesn't really help anyone in the short term.

As far as the more significant restrictions, such as paid holiday entitlement, are concerned, employees who are well rested rather than overworked are typically more productive overall. There is no rational market at all for jobs with substandard working conditions, because whoever you employ in that role will be more effective with proper rest. The only people who think otherwise are poor managers who equate hours worked with productive activity, and frankly if they can't take the government enforcing common sense on them and preventing them from both screwing employees and doing a disservice to their employers, well, tell them to close the door behind them on the way out.

See http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa106.html or a dozen other references you can google for how things like minimum wage and other employeer-employees regulations affect employment.

You can cite academic theories as much as you like. I'm looking at empirical data from a wide range of countries with a wide range of employment laws. The kind of economic hit you are assuming from these sorts of laws should show up as a correlation between lesser restrictions on employers and greater productivity in some sense, but as far as I can see, that correlation simply isn't there.

As I noted earlier, if you look at basic economic measures like per capita GDP — not to mention quality of life indicators such as general health, life expectancy, and of course work-life balance — the countries that do impose minimum holiday requirements around the 4–5 week level and a minimum wage slightly above the poverty line do at least as well, and often much better, than places like the United States. Any pretense that the latter nation is somehow more productive because of its abusive working conditions, as some people on this forum have argued in the past, has pretty much been shown for the fiction is was by the recent economic crash.

I don't know where the market for all these lower-paying jobs you're hypothesizing comes from.

You can't have it both ways. Either there is a market for lower-paying jobs and the government is accomplishing something by making it illegal, or else there isn't and the government's regulations on the matter are thus pointless.

It's not very logical to say that since the government has made something illegal, there wouldn't be a market for it if it was legal.

It's basic economics. (http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp) If you increase the price of something (say, less skilled workers) beyond the market clearing price, you get oversupply. Oversupply is what is referred to as unemployment in labor markets.

See http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa106.html or a dozen other references you can google for how things like minimum wage and other employeer-employees regulations affect employment.

You benefit from not having gangs of teenagers running free on the streets; thanks to compulsory, paid by tax education.

I don't know how education is paid for where you live but everywhere I've lived it was paid for by the property and sales taxes levied by local and state governments, not the federal government which has no Constitutional authority over education. Heck I lived in Florida most of my life and the state doesn't even have an income tax.

You benefit from again from compulsory education when children from families with little money get education

Surprise, surprise, I support education funded by tax payers. At the local and state levels. Local politics is more responsive to local demands. I also support school choice, parents and children should be able to apply for any school the children can go to. Even private schools, I just don't support taxes paying for religious education except as a part of understanding religion and religious man.

Your economy depends to fairly large degree on the military industrial complex.

The military industrial complex is not needed for a vigorous economy. If and the taxpayer money needed to support it is an inefficient use of money, money isn't used where it will be used most efficiently.

Your food is cheaper because your farmers are very, very heavily subsidised.

Not quite. Archer Daniels Midland, a corporate welfare queen, and Cargill receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies while small farmers struggle to stay solvent. It used to be that they, ADM, Cargill, and others, could buy, ship, and sell food to the Third World cheaper than Third World farmers paid to farm. This put a bunch of farmers out of business and eliminated food sovereignty. But now those businesses instead collect subsidies for biofuels. Now that those Third World farmers are out of business food is no longer being shipped to the Third World. Or haven't you heard the howls from the population of the Third World? Now that produce isn't being shipped so much anymore third World farming can pick up again, but delivery of food isn't instantaneous.

Subsidies have distorted the markets so people are starveling when there is no need for them to, there would be plenty of food without subsidies.

Falcon

The really interesting part of all this that the Central East African countries, North and South Rhodisa and Nyaserland had both the malaria and other insect born diseases effectively conquered by the mid 1950s.

And what effect does DDT and other pesticides have on wildlife? If mosquitoes are wiped out then the food for other species is wiped out as well. Such as bats, birds, dragonflies, and frogs.

In addition, we now have vocal, and well funded NGOs, with a vested interest in keeping the third world poor, but pacified.

You can apply that to big business as well. Such as Big Oil. A sovereign nation is invaded for it's oil. The EU, Japan, and US all give billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies so large agribusinesses can export food to the third world and sell it there cheaper than farmers there can grow it. Check out the suicide of farmers in not just India but the US as well. Large businesses like Archer Daniels Midland,ADM, and Cargill get money from government while third world and small farmers in the US, who can't compeat against those large businesses, struggle financially if not goes bankrupt. The freemarket institute CATO has a Case Study In Corporate Welfare about ADM who has been called the biggest corporate welfare queen in history.

Sorry, insects and politicians that cause death, ignorance and disease need killing, not paying.

As entomologists have said if all those insects are wiped out you'd be dead soon, you'd have no food to eat.

Honduras is the classic example of armchair liberals, in the first world, making problems out vanity, ego and stupidity.

How so? Liberals, not the fake ones but Classical Liberals believe in liberty and small government. And it wasn't either them or the fake ones that massacred the Mayas in not just Honduras but Central America itself. Neither one supported the US Army's School of America, which taught Central and South American militaries how to subjugate and torture people.

just wrong.

Objecting because nuclear power is dirty is wrong? Objecting because nuclear power is "Hooked On Subsidies" and is not profitable without those subsidies is wrong? Objecting because cost overruns quadruple the cost of building plants is just wrong?

Falcon

Cost overruns are just the result of sloppy accounting, not some overall problem with the business of Nuclear Power Plant construction.

As for you oft-claimed "Hooked on Subsidies" argument, I would say that any business would be crazy *not* too take free money being handed it. However, Nuclear Power has always been at a disadvantage simply because the *total* cost of burning Coal has never been factored into the argument.

Once the environmental impact of burning coal *is* factored in (which, under the new "Cap and Trade" bill currently under consideration, that is *PRECISELY* what will happen), Nuclear can stand straight and tall on it's own too feet because not one of the over 100 Nuclear Plants currently in operation (and the *SEVEN* NEW ones that have been ordered that you conveniently forgot to mention) produce anything but steam and hot water as a byproduct.

No CO2, no Mercury, and no *radioactive* fly-ash (I'm puzzled as too why anti-nuclear zealots leave out the fact that the World's Coal Power Plants release HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of times *MORE* radioactivity every day than all the Nuclear Power Plants AND Nuclear Weapons ever built or detonated).

I've never heard a nuclear power proponent turn down a subsidy. They are "Hooked On Subsidies".

Falcon

Of course not! Why would anyone turn down a subsidy offered? That doesn't change the fact, however, that A Nuclear Power plant and produce energy cheaper than coal with a virtually nonexistent environmental footprint AND with equal reliability (which, of all of the renewables I've ever heard of, none can accomplish all three).

Subsidies will be taken by the Nuclear Industry as long as they are offered (again, who in their right mind would refuse money!) but that doesn't change the fact that even on equal footing, Nuclear Power is ever bit as sound an investment as Coal Fired Energy and every bit as reliable as Coal Fired Energy.

As a Democrat who voted for President Obama, I'm seeing a lot of moves in the area of environmental law that make me very excited on the future of Nuclear Energy.

One, the new "Cap and Trade" laws will make Coal Power (which is already more expensive to operate than Nuclear, even though the initial plant construction costs *might* be cheaper) even more expensive, and I believe this will leave a very large opening that can only be filled with Nuclear Energy.

Despite all the rosy pictures and cheery outlook for renewables, *only* Nuclear Energy is a drop in replacement for Coal Fired Energy.

Right at this moment, we could begin construction of Nuclear Power Plants beside every Coal Fired Plant in the country and in the space of less than a decade, be in a position to TURN OFF those Coal Fired Stations and *instantly* be under the CO2 emission limits that the Kyoto Treaty would have called for had it been ratified in the United States.

This irrational fear of Nuclear Energy is soon to be overcome not with a sudden public awakening (which is really long overdue) but by shear market forces.

Coal is about to be made extinct by Environmental concerns and the ONLY replacement will be Nuclear.

Frankly, I think the future looks very bright indeed!

If it's cost effective to make a home more efficient, then the owners should do it themselves.

I didn't say home owners shouldn't pay themselves. By the same token do you feel the same about you paying for all the costs of your use of fossil fuels and nuclear power? Or do you thing taxpayers should give coal, other fossil fuels, and nuclear power subsidies as well?

Falcon

Tell that to the freemarket CATO Institute and "Forbes". CATO republished "Forbes'" article "Hooked On Subsidies". Are you going to tell them there's a difference as well?

Especially read where it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Solar panels need subsidies so that people can pretend that they're economical.
Nuclear plants need loans because they are economical,

Nuclear power gets more than loan guarantees. They also get other subsidies. This includes limited liability. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act limits the amount the industry has to pay in the case of an accident, taxpayers pay anything over $10 billion. Do you really think AIG would insure nuclear power with a big premium? Do you think the industry has paid the Navajo when they were harmed by spills? Or any other indigenous groups?

it's just that the chances of some politicians bowing to the pressure from idiot NIMBY's

Oh so now you want to say CATO, Forbes, as well as other business, capitalist, or freemarket groups are idiot NIMBYs?

killing the construction or making expensive changes to the requirements half way through are so high and the amounts of money so large it's more practical to get the loans from the government.

Reread the part above copied from the CATO and Forbes article about how China, France, India, and Russia do not have profitable nuclear power, and they don't have the requirements the US does. Those governments say what gets built not businesses or the market. Oh, but I've already ascertained you think they are idiot NIMBYs.

Falcon

Tell that to the freemarket CATO Institute and "Forbes". CATO republished "Forbes'" article "Hooked On Subsidies". Are you going to tell them there's a difference as well?

Especially read where it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Solar panels need subsidies so that people can pretend that they're economical.
Nuclear plants need loans because they are economical,

Nuclear power gets more than loan guarantees. They also get other subsidies. This includes limited liability. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act limits the amount the industry has to pay in the case of an accident, taxpayers pay anything over $10 billion. Do you really think AIG would insure nuclear power with a big premium? Do you think the industry has paid the Navajo when they were harmed by spills? Or any other indigenous groups?

it's just that the chances of some politicians bowing to the pressure from idiot NIMBY's

Oh so now you want to say CATO, Forbes, as well as other business, capitalist, or freemarket groups are idiot NIMBYs?

killing the construction or making expensive changes to the requirements half way through are so high and the amounts of money so large it's more practical to get the loans from the government.

Reread the part above copied from the CATO and Forbes article about how China, France, India, and Russia do not have profitable nuclear power, and they don't have the requirements the US does. Those governments say what gets built not businesses or the market. Oh, but I've already ascertained you think they are idiot NIMBYs.

Falcon

Because we're not talking about DC transmission...[DC] transmission is actually much cheaper/more efficient than AC for long hauls.

Doesn't change the fact that it's still absurdly expensive. Yet again, much better to put that money into nuclear.

Whether energy comes from coal, nuclear power, solar, or wind those transmission lines still have to do upgraded. If you're going to add the cost of doing so to wind you have to add it to nuclear as well. It's absolutely absurd you count the cost against wind but not nuclear power.

As usual, the hip-and-green crowd gets modded up without proving a thing.

As usual, nuclear power proponents don't prove a thing either. Now I will say something about nuclear power, and provide links to back it up. Nuclear power is not profitable, it is "Hooked on Subsidies". Not even in China, France, India, or Russia is it cost effective:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Meanwhile cost overruns are high and "it would be cheaper for the U.S. to instead focus on energy efficiency and alternative sources such as wind and solar."

Falcon

First of all, I do pay for all my costs.

So how did you figure out external costs?

subsidies are not the government saying "your doing a good job, here is some money"

What subsidies are and what they are supposed to be are different. They are supposed to be temporary aid to get started or during hard tymes. What they are is a yearly hand out to the already wealthy. Cargill is one of the US's largest privately owned corporations yet it receives billions of tax dollars yearly. Archer Daniels Midland, ADM, is another large corporation that receives billions in subsidies. The Freemarket CATO Institute cites ADM in a case study of corporate welfare.

the subsidies you are pointed out was because of government interference and requirements that wouldn't have been there in the first place.

I knew it, I wonder why I post links when they are not read. If you had read at least the article from CATO I linked to you should have read how nuclear power plants are only built because government says to build them, that if it were up to the free market they would not be built. Here's the quote:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Fuck, just look at Al "my mansion uses more electricity then a small city" Gore.

I don't have to, I've already pointed out problems I have with Al Gore. I even pointed out how at least George Bush uses geothermal heating for his ranch in Crawford, TX while Gore built an energy hog of a home himself.

Do what you want to do, just don't attempt to force me or anyone else into doing it unless they want to.

If you pollute you are forcing people to do what they don't want to. And yes, burning fossil fuels is polluting. As is using nuclear power.

Falcon

You stay within _your_means_ not force me to stay within your means.

But are you paying for everything to support your life? Or are you using cheap subsidized power that passes external costs on to others?

Then why are "conservationist" attempting to take my freedoms away and impose their morality onto me?

As long as you pay for all the costs, and don't pass costs on to others, you can do whatever you want. But when my tax dollars support your life style then I will speak up.

Falcon

just wrong.

Objecting because nuclear power is dirty is wrong? Objecting because nuclear power is "Hooked On Subsidies" and is not profitable without those subsidies is wrong? Objecting because cost overruns quadruple the cost of building plants is just wrong?

Falcon

wind (which takes 10's of thousands of acres of turbines to equal a medium-sized coal plant)

Citation needed!

Even if so, that land can still be used for other purposes. Minnesota corn farmers farm wind on the same land. This generates a second source of income for those farmers.

The only form I haven't heard environmentalists condemn is geothermal

I've never heard a nuclear power proponent turn down a subsidy. They are "Hooked On Subsidies".

Falcon

It's ironic that the people who could ultimately end up wrecking the earth are the "greens" and the"save the earth" types who'll do anything they can to prevent nuclear power.

Isn't it ironic that those who want nuclear power are "Hooked on Subsidies"?

Falcon

Especially when you could achieve much better results with nuclear for a tiny tiny fraction of the cost.

Oh really? Then why isn't Wall Street lining up to pay for and invest in nuclear power plants instead of asking for more massive subsidies when they are paying for solar and wind?

Falcon

there is one extremely low carbon footprint technology that we know works and scales well. Too bad the people who oppose it do so without offering any real alternative besides the "renewables" that we've been waiting decades for or the prospect of a lower standard of living.....

Except nuclear power is not scalable. I can't install one on my roof or in my basement. Nor is it only those who want "renewables" who oppose it. Freemarket and business proponents also oppose it. The Freemarket CATO institute republished the Forbes article "Hooked on Subsidies" explaining why "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." Quite simply without massive subsides nuclear is not profitable and Wall Street would not fund it. Even in nations that do not have the regulations the US does nuclear power is not profitable. As TFA says:

"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Oh but I suppose you and or others will say CATO and Forbes are really environmental organizations that oppose nuclear power. Or maybe Finland will be cited, saying nuclear power is profitable there. However "After four years of construction and thousands of recorded defects and deficiencies, the price tag on the reactor in , has climbed at least 50 percent." And "Nuclear dawn delayed in Finland" What's more is that the company building it is Areva and is owned by the French government.

Falcon

Let me recap for you:

Quothz claims we didn't invade Afghanistan. I tell him that's bogus, because the Taliban were a client state of ours since we gave them 40 million dollars. Obviously we recognized they were in control of Afghanistan, until it suited us to say that they weren't "really" the government of Afghanistan. This is a matter of historical record, but let me back that up with something from the CATO Institute.

Yet the Bush administration did more than praise the Taliban's proclaimed ban of opium cultivation. In mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States had long been providing to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Given Callahan's comment, there was little doubt that the new stipend was a reward for Kabul's anti-drug efforts. That $43 million grant needs to be placed in context. Afghanistan's estimated gross domestic product was a mere $2 billion. The equivalent financial impact on the U.S. economy would have required an infusion of $215 billion. In other words, $43 million was very serious money to Afghanistan's theocratic masters.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3556

I see he's been modded insightful for perpetuating the lie that we were "invited" to Afghanistan, but that's hardly surprising. He back pedals, and insists that giving a government that claims they run a country a huge sum of money doesn't mean we recognize they run the country. I pressed him on this point, saying that if a country doesn't recognize another, does that give them the right to invade? Iran versus Israel is an obvious example.

Now, making the claim that the practices of an installed dictatorship under US and British control in the 1970s are somehow are applicable to my argument that Iran in 2009, under the example of the United States, couldn't use an excuse like "the PLO invited us into Palestine" when the Northern Alliance invited the United States into Afghanistan, is just ridiculous. You might as well assert parallels between Poland in 1970 and Poland in 2000. In 2000, the Taliban controlled 95% of Afghanistan. It was lobbying for UN Membership. In 2001, we gave them 40 million dollars while they were at war with the Northern Alliance. I have to say that the political posturing done at the UN compares very little with our tacit monetary support of the Taliban during the same time period.

The bottom line is that he is defending colonial American activities, ignoring the history because that's a requirement for his statement that America didn't invade Afghanistan, and then claiming that my hypothetical invasion of Israel from Iran doesn't count because our colonial regime in 1979 at one point did recognize Israel. So, I showed him the map, which makes it pretty clear that 95% of the area doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel, and the vast majority of those do not officially recognize Israel. So, you can have your little asterisk, but it's a meaningless technicality, just as it was that there were members of the Northern Alliance representing Afghanistan at the UN, despite the fact that they controlled 5% of the country, and lost the capital years ago.

His argument only works if you have amnesia.

And, I'm sorry to say, no one is reading this thread besides you and I, and you're late to the argument with bad information.