3 ms·

Those legally enforceable restrictions last for less than two decades; it's already been 30 years since the Pons and Fleischmann fiasco.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
It's also assuming they would do something untoward with the monopoly, rather than just building a thousand new power plants and then making ten trillion dollars by being the lowest cost provider of zero carbon power generation for twenty years.
- dTal 7y ago
  I don't know how the math works out exactly, but it seems not unlikely that the optimal rollout for curbing carbon emissions as rapidly as possible is not the same as the optimal rollout for maximizing value to shareholders.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Why not? If someone is buying power from coal instead of you when you have lower costs, that's money you're leaving on the table.
    - dTal 7y ago
      I'm sure there's lots of ways it could happen. Off the top of my head - you can't just snap your fingers and start selling power, you need to build the reactors, scale out infrastructure, etc etc. There's huge expenditure involved. If you have a giant pile of money in the bank, earning interest, it might not be worth your while to spend it on that. Another point - how much do you charge for the power? If your goal is to get people to switch, the answer is "as little as you can". If your goal is to make money, the answer is "as much as you can".
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        > If you have a giant pile of money in the bank, earning interest, it might not be worth your while to spend it on that. But that's the case either way. If the technology was public domain, somebody would still have to pay to build the reactors, and then it's even harder to raise capital because with more competition there is less profit. > If your goal is to make money, the answer is "as much as you can". But "as much as you can" really means "just under what existing alternatives cost" -- because getting people to switch is how you make money. You don't make money by losing customers to competitors.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

It's also assuming they would do something untoward with the monopoly, rather than just building a thousand new power plants and then making ten trillion dollars by being the lowest cost provider of zero carbon power generation for twenty years.

dTal 7y ago
I don't know how the math works out exactly, but it seems not unlikely that the optimal rollout for curbing carbon emissions as rapidly as possible is not the same as the optimal rollout for maximizing value to shareholders.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Why not? If someone is buying power from coal instead of you when you have lower costs, that's money you're leaving on the table.
  - dTal 7y ago
    I'm sure there's lots of ways it could happen. Off the top of my head - you can't just snap your fingers and start selling power, you need to build the reactors, scale out infrastructure, etc etc. There's huge expenditure involved. If you have a giant pile of money in the bank, earning interest, it might not be worth your while to spend it on that. Another point - how much do you charge for the power? If your goal is to get people to switch, the answer is "as little as you can". If your goal is to make money, the answer is "as much as you can".
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > If you have a giant pile of money in the bank, earning interest, it might not be worth your while to spend it on that. But that's the case either way. If the technology was public domain, somebody would still have to pay to build the reactors, and then it's even harder to raise capital because with more competition there is less profit. > If your goal is to make money, the answer is "as much as you can". But "as much as you can" really means "just under what existing alternatives cost" -- because getting people to switch is how you make money. You don't make money by losing customers to competitors.