And I'm willing to bet that a bunch of lawyers would be happy to figure it out for us and I would own a building.
It's more complicated than you think. If such a system gained enough testing and studies to show that it's, on average, safer than the old static systems, then the bunch of lawyers could sue somebody for having only the old system. After all, I didn't take 'reasonable' measures to ensure the safety of the building's occupants in case of fire.
So you know first hand how effective the current systems are.
At least for that building, the current 'system' mostly consists of glow in the dark signs saying 'Exit' with an arrow. One good thing is that they're mounted about two feet above the floor, increasing the chances you'll see them through smoke. I'll note that this building also has effectivly no windows.
If I go into a building and you tell me that in case of fire or whatever emergency, the most direct exits will light up leading you away from danger therefore to safety, and then all of them are on leading me into danger because of some glitch or wiring was burnt, whoever told me that I would be safe by following the lighted exist has now caused any injuries or deaths that might happen.
What are the odds of the system failing before people successfully evacute when the system is properly designed and installed? Basically, in case of a fire, does the system, on average, save lives or cost lives? If it works the vast majority of the time and direct people to a good exit, it's better. If not, oh well.
What I'm envisioning is that the 'fail on' would be what's the standard today - battery backed up constant light. I'd have the 'directed path' be done through other signals, either an additional sign/light, voice, whatever.
I sometimes work in a building that's effectivly a maze. I've ended up following the exit signs simply to find my way out.
A good wiring job will prevent the lines from being cut for quite a while, and like others have said - if you loose the link, have them all fail over to 'on'.
The right wire in conduit can take quite a bit of heat before it fails as well.
Fire alarms for big buildings are already linked, this is just an extension of that.
Of course, my bar is quite a bit lower. I don't expect perfection, I simply expect reasonably better performance. Back this up with drills and other tests.
You might end up with fire alarms signs with directional speakers that go 'This way to the exit', or 'Warning: Fire in this direction', along with 'Good' exits being lit up even more.
I'd tend to disagree that just because you've spent 10k on CDs that you're disallowed from complaining about storage or hassle.
Indeed, I have a few hundred DVDs, and it's a pain and hassle to find the one I want to watch. A virtual DVD system would allow me to relocate the DVDs to a box down in the basement(cheaper storage), and use the power of digital search to help keep the organization up.
Offer a download service that's competitive with DVD? I'd sign up in a moment.
Yes I did. It makes sense in context - Remote areas that are too expensive/unwieldy to wire to the rest of the grid. Many of these areas are using diesel. The cost of diesel generation is such that it makes a 10MW plant make sense, even though it costs twice as much per watt as a GW level reactor.
Please note that I said average pop song. They've been engineered to sound best in the audio quality available on a CD. On the other hand, classical music was designed to be enjoyed in person(no other real choice those days), and generally use a much wider frequency range.
I used classic music as the most obvious example. Still, there's many forms of music that could benefit from a higher rate source, Jazz, rock, even many pop songs.
If it becomes common enough, people will start producing more music for it. Still, that's fairly unlikely because building a music system capable of reproducing the music costs far more than a system barely capable of playing CDs decently.
Even for the practically blind guy, wouldn't it be better to avoid confusing him by not lighting exit signs for a route that leads through the danger? Most places require redundent exits from areas larger than 'Joe Manager's corner office'.
If one is blocked by fire, shut the lights off so people don't attempt to go that way. Use standard redundant wiring for it, to include test sensors to tell you when the thing goes bad.
Unfortunately that is a cop out which is just what advertisers pushing the incorrecd depend on - no specific information just something from a minor newsletter from a biased source that gives no indication of how they got those numbers.
I avoided obviously nuclear related sites. The DOE specifically lists individual plant fuel costs as 'confidential', so I'm at a impasse there. That should be public information.
You really should not be a nuclear power advocate if you cannot name a single example of a plant that you would advocate building.
Ah, that's a different question. I thought you were asking about current plants expense ratios. As for what I'd like to see built, the 4S(10MW) design for remote areas, the EPR looks good for larger installs, at 1.6GW. Still, there are many possibilities. Different designs have different costs and advantages.
Still, I like the idea of breeders, and many plants are shift, if not to, to at least closer, using higher enriched sources to allow longer running times and more neutron capture leading to more burn-up, more efficient usage of fuel.
If I had my way I'd be building at least five new nuclear plants of the traditional PWR design, and have restarted research on the IFR.
They could even go to $3.00 a song for people who are aficionados and release the 24 bit stuff.
He didn't mention himself in that statement. Still, there's a market for it, as there are enough people willing to pay $200 for a digital audio cable that somehow improves the sound, as well as other wonky expensive sound system parts to form a measurable market. Why wouldn't apple/the music industry want to get in on it?
While the average pop song won't be improved by it, I'm sure people who appreciate classical music and have a sound system that can play it would appreciate the extra capability. iTunes doesn't just sell pop music, after all.
OK this is probably one of the reasons big corporations actually might agree to publish non DRMed music.
It might just work. I haven't bought or even downloaded music in the last 5 years or so. My music collection is getting badly aged, I've heard some songs I like. I might actually end up giving Apple money now, as the DRM was one of the big reasons I wouldn't give them money.
For example, I've literally spent hundreds of dollars on Baen's webscription site. I 'own' at least a third of their ebooks. They're completely without DRM. Meanwhile, I've purchased exactly 1 ebook from another source, mostly as an experiment. I haven't been back since. They're too much of a hassle.
Yes, I know I could download everything illegaly, but I happen to like being legal, as well as the added convenience.
It's been a while since I researched codec stuff, but isn't 256kbps getting awfully close to FLAC(lossless) compression?
Hmm...
Wiki Link: ATRAC's original 292 kbit/s bitrate was designed to be 'close to CD quality', sonically. This is the bitrate used on original MiniDiscs. Years later ATRAC was improved and is generally considered better than earlier versions at similar bitrates. For purposes of comparison, CDs are encoded at 1411.2 kbit/s, and lossless encoders can encode most CDs below 1000 kbit/s, with significant bitrate reduction for easier-to-encode content such as voice.
Assuming they're using an up to date codec and encoder, it looks like they could almost do better than CD quality, assuming they go back to the masters. I wouldn't make that bet, though.
Why go to a special store? Even walmart is stocking different 'color' CFls today. Buy three or four, find one that you like, return the rest.
As for having to go back to the store, CFLs are rated for 5-7 years, and like LEDs, they mostly just grow dimmer rather than instantly breaking.
In other words - replacing a light will end up being a special project rather than something that happens frequently enough that it ends up on a grocery list.
I'm hoping they eventually make it a requirement for stores that sell the bulbs to accept them back for disposal.
It'd be incredibly inefficient to try to turn every department, grocery, hardware, and convienence store into a recycling center.
It'd be far more efficient to mount a can or box on the garbage truck and have you stick it outside in a bag beside the can. Heck, include small battery disposal in the same service. You'll want them in seperate containers simply because CFLs are fairly fragile and batteries are heavy. By not having special days, you can dispose of them whenever, so volume stays low and people are less likely to just chuck them into the trash.
BTW, I have some flourescent tubes to dispose of. The fixture was of a non-standard size and had failing ballasts, so I replaced the whole thing. I'll be calling the waste disposal company tommorow(during business hours) to find out the disposal instructions.
1 40MW solar power plant: $300 million(from article). 1 1GW nuclear power plant: $1-3 Billion. Based on various sources found through google, concentrating on actual studies, not estimates from when a single letter from a 'concerned citizen' could stop construction for weeks/months.
10 40MW Solar plants, 400MW capacity, 3 Billion. 1 1GW nuclear power plant, 1000MW capacity, $1-3 Billion.
Mercury's a heavy metal. It would have been cheaper to wash the walls down, rip out the carpet, paint the walls and replace the carpet. Probably just as or more effective.
Heck, have a professional cleaning service come by and steam clean before the guy tests...
Still, it'd be nice to see CFLs be armoured a little better. Enough to survive a twelve foot drop onto carpet, at least.
If it's a patent, they might be in trouble, especially if they have no product.
Why didn't they design one in the past: LEDs were too expensive for it to make even slight sense, as well as too dim.
What would it take to build one today: Any competent electrical engineer should be able to do it. AC/DC power transformer suited for the task of changing the high frequency/high voltage provided by the flouro light fixture to DC, then standard LED placement, all packaged up in a fixture that fits into the sockets.
The fact that they've adapted FL to incandescent socket CFLs, are producing LED flashlight adaptors, etc... All makes it fairly obvious. If/when LEDs become cheaper to operate than FLT, then we'll start seeing them. Remember that you'd have to figure the greater cost of the LED adaptation system and tube. LEDs would have to be dirt cheap for it to make sense. An expensive FLT is like $10, and lasts a decade. A cheap one is around $2 retail(IE big stores can get them cheaper), and also lasts pretty much a decade. I went aheand and installed the 'good' ones in my home fixture, it does produce a nice light. It seemed very blue for a while, it's much whiter than most incandescent bulbs.
Finding the specific information is a pain in the butt. Neither coal nor nuclear like posting their costs & production levels.
Still, simple math should show you that 'many' nuclear plants would have to indeed be cheaper than many coal plants if the average production costs are going to be lower for them, as specified in the many studies, two of which I refrenced in the previous post.
UK report: Gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbine 2.2 Gas-fired open-cycle gas turbine 3.1* Nuclear fission plant 2.3 Coal-fired pulverised fuel steam plant 2.5 Coal-fired circulating fluidised bed steam plant 2.6 Coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle 3.2 (* Open-cycle gas turbines are usually used for short periods to meet peaks in demand, so a more realistic cost is around 6.2 p/kWh when used for only 15 percent of the time.)
Another little fact: The government hasn't paid out yet for the catastrophic clause, and would intercede far sooner for something like a chemicaldisaster.
From wiki: Over the first 43 years of the Price-Anderson Act to 2000, the secondary insurance was not required. A total of $151 million was paid to cover claims (including legal expenses), all from primary insurance, including $70 million for Three Mile Island. Additionally, the Department of Energy paid about $65 million to cover claims under liability for its own nuclear operations in the same period.
This is actually pretty standard in the insurance world. For example, my car insurance policy is capped at $250k per person for medical, with a $500k cap per incident. If, god forbid, I were to cause a major enough accident, for example, causing a man to become parapalegic, his continuing care would quickly exceed the $250k cap. He then comes after me, I have another $100k of personal liability protection. After than, I'm finished. You're down to raiding my retirement funds for a few $k and garnishing my wages. That's not going to cover much, not in comparison with the insurance. Medicare is likely to take over at that point.
You want to know what's scary? Most people in my area have a $100k/300k policy. I have what's considered a large amount of insurance.
I challange you to name for me a chemical facility with more than 10 billion in insurance, or even $300 million. There are plenty of chemical plants out there that with a catastrophic leak could cause damage comparable with a nuclear meltdown.
The current operating plants are all very dissappointing from a civilian perspective
You sure? Many of them are currently operating cheaper than coal, and they've refurbed a number of them, as well as built more reactors on plant sites. There are many plants where they've upgraded the reactor to produce two to three times the power, and more consistantly at that. They've also ended up reactivating or finishing construction on plants that stopped back in the '80s.
As for the cost basis, they're for existing designs using known costs, as well as equivalent costs for plants built elsewhere, such as Japan, France, South Africa, etc...
stove and microwave bulbs (that'll be an interesting one)
I believe that the legislation exempts 'utility' extreme-climate bulbs like what are in stoves and refridgerators. Though I'd imagine that the refridgerator ones could be easily replaced by a LED set.
I have pretty much all flourescent lighting, the remaining bulbs are those that haven't blown yet because I never use them like a couple closet lights.
I like CFLs, and would pay for them even if they didn't use less electricity for the simple fact that I don't have to keep replacing them.
With solar, once you've hooked the panels up, it's very low maintenance from there on. Plus, al-Qaeda isn't going to be breaking into your solar plant looking for material for dirty bombs.
They'd be better off going after hospitals if they want dirty bomb materials. I'd actually love to see them try to get them from a nuclear plant; they're more likely to make themselves glow in the dark(briefly) and need lead-lined caskets going after radioactive materials in a nuclear plant.
Besides, they could do quite enough damage with around a thousand smoke alarms. Remember the Boy Scout who built his own pile in a shed in the backyard?
There is also the matter of conservation. You say that you spend a billion dollars on nuclear power, and you can get a gigawatt of production from that. On the other hand, if you take that billion dollars and buy 250M CFL bulbs (rough guess: they'll be on 10% of the time on average, so effectively 25M bulbs), and each one is using 45 fewer watts than the incandescent it replaces, you've eliminated the need for 1.125GW of capacity for several years. That's just one of many potential conservation measures that could be taken with the same sort of money.
Please note: I have NO OBJECTION to these measures. Still, what do you do after you've replaced all the light bulbs with CFLs? Heck, wander into my house. I have a total of five incandescents left in my house, and three of them are utility bulbs(two for the fridge, one for the oven). The other two are in closets and haven't burned out yet, mostly because I never turn them on. Well, they might have burned out or been broken, but I haven't noticed.;). I have three sets of flourescent bulbs, the long tube type. They're even more efficient.
Canada has 33 million people. Assuming you get 3 bulbs per person, that's a potential savings of around 3.5-4GW for the whole country, afterwards you're stuck on building new power plants again. Well, you could always do something like get companies to actually turn their lights off when they're not open, that'd save quite a bit of money.
I'm approaching it from the supply side because populations are still rising and electrical use, especially for industry, is important.
Yes, it's monthly. 4kw * 30 days * 24 hours *.5 load factor= 1440 kwh/month per house. I'm not sure where the 8 hours fit in.
NC is far further south than this proposed plant, any given panel set will produce more power on average, lowering the cost per kwh. Also, the USA tends to subsidize construction directly, which would change the equations.
Slashdot Mirror
And I'm willing to bet that a bunch of lawyers would be happy to figure it out for us and I would own a building.
It's more complicated than you think. If such a system gained enough testing and studies to show that it's, on average, safer than the old static systems, then the bunch of lawyers could sue somebody for having only the old system. After all, I didn't take 'reasonable' measures to ensure the safety of the building's occupants in case of fire.
So you know first hand how effective the current systems are.
At least for that building, the current 'system' mostly consists of glow in the dark signs saying 'Exit' with an arrow. One good thing is that they're mounted about two feet above the floor, increasing the chances you'll see them through smoke. I'll note that this building also has effectivly no windows.
If I go into a building and you tell me that in case of fire or whatever emergency, the most direct exits will light up leading you away from danger therefore to safety, and then all of them are on leading me into danger because of some glitch or wiring was burnt, whoever told me that I would be safe by following the lighted exist has now caused any injuries or deaths that might happen.
What are the odds of the system failing before people successfully evacute when the system is properly designed and installed? Basically, in case of a fire, does the system, on average, save lives or cost lives? If it works the vast majority of the time and direct people to a good exit, it's better. If not, oh well.
What I'm envisioning is that the 'fail on' would be what's the standard today - battery backed up constant light. I'd have the 'directed path' be done through other signals, either an additional sign/light, voice, whatever.
I sometimes work in a building that's effectivly a maze. I've ended up following the exit signs simply to find my way out.
A good wiring job will prevent the lines from being cut for quite a while, and like others have said - if you loose the link, have them all fail over to 'on'.
The right wire in conduit can take quite a bit of heat before it fails as well.
Fire alarms for big buildings are already linked, this is just an extension of that.
Of course, my bar is quite a bit lower. I don't expect perfection, I simply expect reasonably better performance. Back this up with drills and other tests.
You might end up with fire alarms signs with directional speakers that go 'This way to the exit', or 'Warning: Fire in this direction', along with 'Good' exits being lit up even more.
I'd tend to disagree that just because you've spent 10k on CDs that you're disallowed from complaining about storage or hassle.
Indeed, I have a few hundred DVDs, and it's a pain and hassle to find the one I want to watch. A virtual DVD system would allow me to relocate the DVDs to a box down in the basement(cheaper storage), and use the power of digital search to help keep the organization up.
Offer a download service that's competitive with DVD? I'd sign up in a moment.
Did you really advocate a 10MW nuclear plant?
Yes I did. It makes sense in context - Remote areas that are too expensive/unwieldy to wire to the rest of the grid. Many of these areas are using diesel. The cost of diesel generation is such that it makes a 10MW plant make sense, even though it costs twice as much per watt as a GW level reactor.
Please note that I said average pop song. They've been engineered to sound best in the audio quality available on a CD. On the other hand, classical music was designed to be enjoyed in person(no other real choice those days), and generally use a much wider frequency range.
I used classic music as the most obvious example. Still, there's many forms of music that could benefit from a higher rate source, Jazz, rock, even many pop songs.
If it becomes common enough, people will start producing more music for it. Still, that's fairly unlikely because building a music system capable of reproducing the music costs far more than a system barely capable of playing CDs decently.
Even for the practically blind guy, wouldn't it be better to avoid confusing him by not lighting exit signs for a route that leads through the danger? Most places require redundent exits from areas larger than 'Joe Manager's corner office'.
If one is blocked by fire, shut the lights off so people don't attempt to go that way. Use standard redundant wiring for it, to include test sensors to tell you when the thing goes bad.
Yeah, I see that. The reason I posted the link I did was because it had a better bitrate comparison listing.
For example, it listed the bitrate of uncompressed CD, mentioned lossless, etc...
Your link does mention that for 256kbps, you don't have significant benefits for using aac over mp3.
Unfortunately that is a cop out which is just what advertisers pushing the incorrecd depend on - no specific information just something from a minor newsletter from a biased source that gives no indication of how they got those numbers.
The DOE is a minor newsletter?
I avoided obviously nuclear related sites. The DOE specifically lists individual plant fuel costs as 'confidential', so I'm at a impasse there. That should be public information.
You really should not be a nuclear power advocate if you cannot name a single example of a plant that you would advocate building.
Ah, that's a different question. I thought you were asking about current plants expense ratios. As for what I'd like to see built, the 4S(10MW) design for remote areas, the EPR looks good for larger installs, at 1.6GW. Still, there are many possibilities. Different designs have different costs and advantages.
Still, I like the idea of breeders, and many plants are shift, if not to, to at least closer, using higher enriched sources to allow longer running times and more neutron capture leading to more burn-up, more efficient usage of fuel.
If I had my way I'd be building at least five new nuclear plants of the traditional PWR design, and have restarted research on the IFR.
They could even go to $3.00 a song for people who are aficionados and release the 24 bit stuff.
He didn't mention himself in that statement. Still, there's a market for it, as there are enough people willing to pay $200 for a digital audio cable that somehow improves the sound, as well as other wonky expensive sound system parts to form a measurable market. Why wouldn't apple/the music industry want to get in on it?
While the average pop song won't be improved by it, I'm sure people who appreciate classical music and have a sound system that can play it would appreciate the extra capability. iTunes doesn't just sell pop music, after all.
OK this is probably one of the reasons big corporations actually might agree to publish non DRMed music.
It might just work. I haven't bought or even downloaded music in the last 5 years or so. My music collection is getting badly aged, I've heard some songs I like. I might actually end up giving Apple money now, as the DRM was one of the big reasons I wouldn't give them money.
For example, I've literally spent hundreds of dollars on Baen's webscription site. I 'own' at least a third of their ebooks. They're completely without DRM. Meanwhile, I've purchased exactly 1 ebook from another source, mostly as an experiment. I haven't been back since. They're too much of a hassle.
Yes, I know I could download everything illegaly, but I happen to like being legal, as well as the added convenience.
It's been a while since I researched codec stuff, but isn't 256kbps getting awfully close to FLAC(lossless) compression?
Hmm...
Wiki Link: ATRAC's original 292 kbit/s bitrate was designed to be 'close to CD quality', sonically. This is the bitrate used on original MiniDiscs. Years later ATRAC was improved and is generally considered better than earlier versions at similar bitrates. For purposes of comparison, CDs are encoded at 1411.2 kbit/s, and lossless encoders can encode most CDs below 1000 kbit/s, with significant bitrate reduction for easier-to-encode content such as voice.
Assuming they're using an up to date codec and encoder, it looks like they could almost do better than CD quality, assuming they go back to the masters. I wouldn't make that bet, though.
Why go to a special store? Even walmart is stocking different 'color' CFls today. Buy three or four, find one that you like, return the rest.
As for having to go back to the store, CFLs are rated for 5-7 years, and like LEDs, they mostly just grow dimmer rather than instantly breaking.
In other words - replacing a light will end up being a special project rather than something that happens frequently enough that it ends up on a grocery list.
I'm hoping they eventually make it a requirement for stores that sell the bulbs to accept them back for disposal.
It'd be incredibly inefficient to try to turn every department, grocery, hardware, and convienence store into a recycling center.
It'd be far more efficient to mount a can or box on the garbage truck and have you stick it outside in a bag beside the can. Heck, include small battery disposal in the same service. You'll want them in seperate containers simply because CFLs are fairly fragile and batteries are heavy. By not having special days, you can dispose of them whenever, so volume stays low and people are less likely to just chuck them into the trash.
BTW, I have some flourescent tubes to dispose of. The fixture was of a non-standard size and had failing ballasts, so I replaced the whole thing. I'll be calling the waste disposal company tommorow(during business hours) to find out the disposal instructions.
1 40MW solar power plant: $300 million(from article).
1 1GW nuclear power plant: $1-3 Billion. Based on various sources found through google, concentrating on actual studies, not estimates from when a single letter from a 'concerned citizen' could stop construction for weeks/months.
10 40MW Solar plants, 400MW capacity, 3 Billion.
1 1GW nuclear power plant, 1000MW capacity, $1-3 Billion.
Mercury's a heavy metal. It would have been cheaper to wash the walls down, rip out the carpet, paint the walls and replace the carpet. Probably just as or more effective.
Heck, have a professional cleaning service come by and steam clean before the guy tests...
Still, it'd be nice to see CFLs be armoured a little better. Enough to survive a twelve foot drop onto carpet, at least.
If it's a patent, they might be in trouble, especially if they have no product.
Why didn't they design one in the past: LEDs were too expensive for it to make even slight sense, as well as too dim.
What would it take to build one today: Any competent electrical engineer should be able to do it. AC/DC power transformer suited for the task of changing the high frequency/high voltage provided by the flouro light fixture to DC, then standard LED placement, all packaged up in a fixture that fits into the sockets.
The fact that they've adapted FL to incandescent socket CFLs, are producing LED flashlight adaptors, etc... All makes it fairly obvious. If/when LEDs become cheaper to operate than FLT, then we'll start seeing them. Remember that you'd have to figure the greater cost of the LED adaptation system and tube. LEDs would have to be dirt cheap for it to make sense. An expensive FLT is like $10, and lasts a decade. A cheap one is around $2 retail(IE big stores can get them cheaper), and also lasts pretty much a decade. I went aheand and installed the 'good' ones in my home fixture, it does produce a nice light. It seemed very blue for a while, it's much whiter than most incandescent bulbs.
FLT: Flourescent Light Tube
Finding the specific information is a pain in the butt. Neither coal nor nuclear like posting their costs & production levels.
Still, simple math should show you that 'many' nuclear plants would have to indeed be cheaper than many coal plants if the average production costs are going to be lower for them, as specified in the many studies, two of which I refrenced in the previous post.
NEI report - Average production costs: 1.83 cents/kwh nuclear, 2.07 for coal
UK report:
Gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbine 2.2
Gas-fired open-cycle gas turbine 3.1*
Nuclear fission plant 2.3
Coal-fired pulverised fuel steam plant 2.5
Coal-fired circulating fluidised bed steam plant 2.6
Coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle 3.2
(* Open-cycle gas turbines are usually used for short periods to meet peaks in demand, so a more realistic cost is around 6.2 p/kWh when used for only 15 percent of the time.)
Any company that prefers cost over the environment really isn't as welcome in Canada as you'd think.
Cost has to be a factor. Nuclear power is clean and sustainable while being inexpensive.
Same thing with cheating employees.
I wouldn't want cheating employees either.
I suggest that you read up on the price-anderson act. Nuclear power plants actually have $300 million in private insurance, $10 billion in a collective insurance pool
Another little fact: The government hasn't paid out yet for the catastrophic clause, and would intercede far sooner for something like a chemical disaster.
From wiki:
Over the first 43 years of the Price-Anderson Act to 2000, the secondary insurance was not required. A total of $151 million was paid to cover claims (including legal expenses), all from primary insurance, including $70 million for Three Mile Island. Additionally, the Department of Energy paid about $65 million to cover claims under liability for its own nuclear operations in the same period.
This is actually pretty standard in the insurance world. For example, my car insurance policy is capped at $250k per person for medical, with a $500k cap per incident. If, god forbid, I were to cause a major enough accident, for example, causing a man to become parapalegic, his continuing care would quickly exceed the $250k cap. He then comes after me, I have another $100k of personal liability protection. After than, I'm finished. You're down to raiding my retirement funds for a few $k and garnishing my wages. That's not going to cover much, not in comparison with the insurance. Medicare is likely to take over at that point.
You want to know what's scary? Most people in my area have a $100k/300k policy. I have what's considered a large amount of insurance.
I challange you to name for me a chemical facility with more than 10 billion in insurance, or even $300 million. There are plenty of chemical plants out there that with a catastrophic leak could cause damage comparable with a nuclear meltdown.
The current operating plants are all very dissappointing from a civilian perspective
You sure? Many of them are currently operating cheaper than coal, and they've refurbed a number of them, as well as built more reactors on plant sites. There are many plants where they've upgraded the reactor to produce two to three times the power, and more consistantly at that. They've also ended up reactivating or finishing construction on plants that stopped back in the '80s.
As for the cost basis, they're for existing designs using known costs, as well as equivalent costs for plants built elsewhere, such as Japan, France, South Africa, etc...
stove and microwave bulbs (that'll be an interesting one)
I believe that the legislation exempts 'utility' extreme-climate bulbs like what are in stoves and refridgerators. Though I'd imagine that the refridgerator ones could be easily replaced by a LED set.
I have pretty much all flourescent lighting, the remaining bulbs are those that haven't blown yet because I never use them like a couple closet lights.
I like CFLs, and would pay for them even if they didn't use less electricity for the simple fact that I don't have to keep replacing them.
With solar, once you've hooked the panels up, it's very low maintenance from there on. Plus, al-Qaeda isn't going to be breaking into your solar plant looking for material for dirty bombs.
;). I have three sets of flourescent bulbs, the long tube type. They're even more efficient.
They'd be better off going after hospitals if they want dirty bomb materials. I'd actually love to see them try to get them from a nuclear plant; they're more likely to make themselves glow in the dark(briefly) and need lead-lined caskets going after radioactive materials in a nuclear plant.
Besides, they could do quite enough damage with around a thousand smoke alarms. Remember the Boy Scout who built his own pile in a shed in the backyard?
There is also the matter of conservation. You say that you spend a billion dollars on nuclear power, and you can get a gigawatt of production from that. On the other hand, if you take that billion dollars and buy 250M CFL bulbs (rough guess: they'll be on 10% of the time on average, so effectively 25M bulbs), and each one is using 45 fewer watts than the incandescent it replaces, you've eliminated the need for 1.125GW of capacity for several years. That's just one of many potential conservation measures that could be taken with the same sort of money.
Please note: I have NO OBJECTION to these measures. Still, what do you do after you've replaced all the light bulbs with CFLs? Heck, wander into my house. I have a total of five incandescents left in my house, and three of them are utility bulbs(two for the fridge, one for the oven). The other two are in closets and haven't burned out yet, mostly because I never turn them on. Well, they might have burned out or been broken, but I haven't noticed.
Canada has 33 million people. Assuming you get 3 bulbs per person, that's a potential savings of around 3.5-4GW for the whole country, afterwards you're stuck on building new power plants again. Well, you could always do something like get companies to actually turn their lights off when they're not open, that'd save quite a bit of money.
I'm approaching it from the supply side because populations are still rising and electrical use, especially for industry, is important.
Yes, it's monthly. 4kw * 30 days * 24 hours * .5 load factor= 1440 kwh/month per house. I'm not sure where the 8 hours fit in.
NC is far further south than this proposed plant, any given panel set will produce more power on average, lowering the cost per kwh. Also, the USA tends to subsidize construction directly, which would change the equations.