9 ms·

Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station

89 points by gscott 3y ago

firatsarlar 3y ago
Such a danger and progress ! ...
aaron695 3y ago
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines was completed in 1984 but never turned on, but fingers crossed it still might get a chance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Nuclear_Power_Plant Clean-energy push puts abandoned Philippine nuclear plant back in spotlight - https://www.bworldonline.com/bataan-nuclear-power-plant-the-promise-of-power/ https://www.bworldonline.com/bataan-nuclear-power-plant-the-... "The latest offer to rehabilitate the BNPP stands at $1.19 billion, put forward in 2017 by South Korea. In January 2023, the U.S. also revealed that it is in talks to assist the Philippines in its transition to nuclear energy."
eternauta3k 3y ago
Similar thing happened in Argentina: started to construct a nuclear power plant, stopped construction for 10 years. But it was eventually finished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atucha_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Atucha_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atucha_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Atu... PS: Isn't it illegal for Americans to bribe people abroad? Why is this guy openly admitting to it?
- changoplatanero 3y ago
  I wonder if it’s only illegal for corporations to pay bribes but not individuals
- rocket_surgeron 3y ago
  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 pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person. That's one sentence. Good job DoJ! https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...
  - zamnos 3y ago
    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
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      It's not really a business interest though.
      - zamnos 3y ago
        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.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        Umm yeah but in this case they just wanted to take a few pics for curiosity's sake. It doesn't look like the site they published them on even makes them money, there's no ads.
        zamnos 3y ago
        I didn't claim their cat was a business expense, but presented a scenario where it could be considered one. I don't see what their site has to do with my hypothetical.
  - ponector 3y ago
    The most interesting part is some bribes are not bribes by law. They call it facilitation payment! In legal terms there is nothing bad in paying corrupted employee of some government office to do his work. Imagine you had all papers correct for your cat, but they anyway would not release your cat from quarantine, without any reason. Then your facilitation payment is not a bribe.
- zamnos 3y ago
  > Criminal violations of the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) anti-bribery provisions must be enforced within five years of the last act required to complete the crime or violation. Criminal violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions have a six-year statute of limitations. https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/resources/anti-bribery-and-corruption-us-statute-of-limitations/ https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/resources/anti-bribe...
  - slim 3y ago
    how convenient /s
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mkl 3y ago
  Not everyone is American. The author is British: https://lithub.com/author/darmonrichter/ https://lithub.com/author/darmonrichter/, https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2019/05/31/finding-beauty-in-bulgaria/?sh=52dff741213d https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2019/05/31/finding-beau...
dankle 3y ago
Let's hope this one never gets completed. This is ancient tech the world no longer needs. Assuming that it can't be converted into a modern nuclear plant, that is.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Perhaps the US could donate them some solar technology to help them make the right decision?
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  [flagged]
self_awareness 3y ago
> > Minimum wage in Cuba runs at around $8 a month. Of course, the socialist nature of the country means that this isn’t quite as bad as it sounds – with free healthcare and education, along with state housing, and food rations [...] What an awful propaganda piece.
- daemoens 3y ago
  The guy was using it to explain why the guard took the bribe so easily. This is the opposite of propaganda.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    But he didn't take it.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
  > and food rations that will almost keep hunger from the door Do you seriously think that's propaganda?
  - self_awareness 3y ago
    I know. I have access to "free" healthcare, "free" schooling, had contact with food rations, communism, so I actually know. Just don't tell me that THAT wasn't real communism, because it felt real to me.
dsign 3y ago
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 that would be but the very beginning of what is needed. The next step would be for US to lift sanctions against Cuba. Legislation needs to be passed for that, and said legislation would be against the interests of people who used to have properties in Cuba before 1959. Nationalized properties are not the only litigation targets over anything Cuban, because the government from 1959 to the date took a lot of loans that didn't repay. The international legal system would find ways to ask for that money back to any future government, corporation, or individual living in the island, which in turn would make the cost of living or doing business in Cuba extremely high, even in the absence of the Communist Party.
- _vbnz 3y ago
  Yeah, but if you speak to Cubans they really think it become Miami overnight if they get rid of the Communist Party. Whereas the reality is probably much closer to Haiti. It'd be best if there were a steady transition of ending the blockade, allowing markets in non-natural monopoly industries and services (in practice this largely exists already), multi-party democracy without persecution. Cuba has pretty great education in comparison to similar nations and a relatively large population, so I think there's a lot of opportunities. I can understand why they're so defensive though, the USA has openly admitted to dozens of assassination attempts on the Castro family, etc. - literally no different from Russia poisoning Yushchenko.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > Nationalized properties are not the only litigation targets over anything Cuban, because the government from 1959 to the date took a lot of loans that didn't repay. The international legal system would find ways to ask for that money back to any future government, corporation, or individual living in the island That would indeed turn it into Haiti, just as Haiti was made to pay for expropriated property (human beings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy If the world, or more specifically the US, wants a free and democratic Cuba, it's going to have to agree to a blank slate and not try to take back the pound of flesh. "Come back to the international order, we'll impoverish you for generations" is not a tempting offer.
nivenkos 3y ago
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's recent decision to shut down all nuclear power plants). The lack of competition has also lead the USA to rest on its laurels - no longer investing greatly in STEM education, NASA, national infrastructure, etc. as they did in response to the sudden achievement of Sputnik.
- walrus01 3y ago
  Given sunshine in Cuba it might not be necessary to finish. The for-profit grid feeding giant solar power station in Rajasthan, India is buying power at a rate under 3 cents per kWh, and the private capital that put up the money to build it still has an ROI that pencils out. A hundred million dollars of ground mount photovoltaics in Cuba might do a lot more good than spending money to finish a possibly obsolete design nuclear reactor.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.
    - walrus01 3y ago
      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.
      - illiarian 3y ago
        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.
lentil_soup 3y ago
> in such an economy the majority of workers will be glad to take a bribe > gesturing to our cameras, making a meaningful pat of his wallet inside his pocket > It might have been the presence of the work crew that deterred this man ... Perhaps the team of workers were looting the place I really hate this attitude, this feeling of superiority that because you're in a poorer country and you're rich and entitled you just go there and bribe people to satisfy your misery tourism. They wouldn't do this in say, London, but because it's some poor country it's cool to even brag about it. And not only that, they assume everyone is up for a bribe and even when they refuse it's because of some even bigger scam happening.
- pjc50 3y ago
  The London bribery rates are higher. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273
- kelnos 3y ago
  Fact of the matter is that bribery is common in many places, and, yes, often those places are poorer countries. Regardless, I think your judgment of the author is a little harsh. They even acknowledge and question their assumed superiority in the very next paragraph, which I think is refreshingly honest: > Of course, it was equally possible that the guard simply wouldn’t accept a bribe on moral grounds – and as we walked back to the car, I wondered whether it said more about me or about him, that this possibility only came as an afterthought.
- danielfoster 3y ago
  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.”
bipson 3y ago
See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Pl... Completely finished, everything was ready, even the protective clothing and all employee contracts, fuel rods on standby, just never switched on due to popular vote (political miscalculation). "The most expensive museum in the world".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sbaiddn 3y ago
Paraphrased: "I tried to bride the guard. But he refused. Probably because he'd already received a better bribe or was stealing. It only occurred to me later the possibility he might be honest. For a fleeting second, the thought crossed mg mind that I might be the criminal - but I shrugged it off and jumped over the fence and trespassed in." This attitude is slathered with contempt and superiority. Its also quite common among travelers. We act aghast when our "tourists" are arrested and sentenced to decades of jail or execution for drugs or taking pictures of sensitive installations. Good riddance! If you're unwilling to do the time obey the local laws or stay in your country!
- trollerator23 3y ago
  Yeah what the hell. F*k that guy.

89 points by gscott 3y ago

Such a danger and progress ! ...

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines was completed in 1984 but never turned on, but fingers crossed it still might get a chance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Nuclear_Power_Plant Clean-energy push puts abandoned Philippine nuclear plant back in spotlight - https://www.bworldonline.com/bataan-nuclear-power-plant-the-promise-of-power/ https://www.bworldonline.com/bataan-nuclear-power-plant-the-... "The latest offer to rehabilitate the BNPP stands at $1.19 billion, put forward in 2017 by South Korea. In January 2023, the U.S. also revealed that it is in talks to assist the Philippines in its transition to nuclear energy."

eternauta3k 3y ago

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

changoplatanero 3y ago
I wonder if it’s only illegal for corporations to pay bribes but not individuals
rocket_surgeron 3y ago
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 pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person. That's one sentence. Good job DoJ! https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...
- zamnos 3y ago
  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
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    It's not really a business interest though.
    - zamnos 3y ago
      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.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        Umm yeah but in this case they just wanted to take a few pics for curiosity's sake. It doesn't look like the site they published them on even makes them money, there's no ads.
        zamnos 3y ago
        I didn't claim their cat was a business expense, but presented a scenario where it could be considered one. I don't see what their site has to do with my hypothetical.
- ponector 3y ago
  The most interesting part is some bribes are not bribes by law. They call it facilitation payment! In legal terms there is nothing bad in paying corrupted employee of some government office to do his work. Imagine you had all papers correct for your cat, but they anyway would not release your cat from quarantine, without any reason. Then your facilitation payment is not a bribe.
zamnos 3y ago
> Criminal violations of the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) anti-bribery provisions must be enforced within five years of the last act required to complete the crime or violation. Criminal violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions have a six-year statute of limitations. https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/resources/anti-bribery-and-corruption-us-statute-of-limitations/ https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/resources/anti-bribe...
- slim 3y ago
  how convenient /s
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mkl 3y ago
Not everyone is American. The author is British: https://lithub.com/author/darmonrichter/ https://lithub.com/author/darmonrichter/, https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2019/05/31/finding-beauty-in-bulgaria/?sh=52dff741213d https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2019/05/31/finding-beau...

dankle 3y ago

Let's hope this one never gets completed. This is ancient tech the world no longer needs. Assuming that it can't be converted into a modern nuclear plant, that is.

jimnotgym 3y ago
Perhaps the US could donate them some solar technology to help them make the right decision?
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
[flagged]

self_awareness 3y ago

> > Minimum wage in Cuba runs at around $8 a month. Of course, the socialist nature of the country means that this isn’t quite as bad as it sounds – with free healthcare and education, along with state housing, and food rations [...] What an awful propaganda piece.

daemoens 3y ago
The guy was using it to explain why the guard took the bribe so easily. This is the opposite of propaganda.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  But he didn't take it.
Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
> and food rations that will almost keep hunger from the door Do you seriously think that's propaganda?
- self_awareness 3y ago
  I know. I have access to "free" healthcare, "free" schooling, had contact with food rations, communism, so I actually know. Just don't tell me that THAT wasn't real communism, because it felt real to me.

dsign 3y ago

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 that would be but the very beginning of what is needed. The next step would be for US to lift sanctions against Cuba. Legislation needs to be passed for that, and said legislation would be against the interests of people who used to have properties in Cuba before 1959. Nationalized properties are not the only litigation targets over anything Cuban, because the government from 1959 to the date took a lot of loans that didn't repay. The international legal system would find ways to ask for that money back to any future government, corporation, or individual living in the island, which in turn would make the cost of living or doing business in Cuba extremely high, even in the absence of the Communist Party.

_vbnz 3y ago
Yeah, but if you speak to Cubans they really think it become Miami overnight if they get rid of the Communist Party. Whereas the reality is probably much closer to Haiti. It'd be best if there were a steady transition of ending the blockade, allowing markets in non-natural monopoly industries and services (in practice this largely exists already), multi-party democracy without persecution. Cuba has pretty great education in comparison to similar nations and a relatively large population, so I think there's a lot of opportunities. I can understand why they're so defensive though, the USA has openly admitted to dozens of assassination attempts on the Castro family, etc. - literally no different from Russia poisoning Yushchenko.
pjc50 3y ago
> Nationalized properties are not the only litigation targets over anything Cuban, because the government from 1959 to the date took a lot of loans that didn't repay. The international legal system would find ways to ask for that money back to any future government, corporation, or individual living in the island That would indeed turn it into Haiti, just as Haiti was made to pay for expropriated property (human beings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy If the world, or more specifically the US, wants a free and democratic Cuba, it's going to have to agree to a blank slate and not try to take back the pound of flesh. "Come back to the international order, we'll impoverish you for generations" is not a tempting offer.

nivenkos 3y ago

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's recent decision to shut down all nuclear power plants). The lack of competition has also lead the USA to rest on its laurels - no longer investing greatly in STEM education, NASA, national infrastructure, etc. as they did in response to the sudden achievement of Sputnik.

walrus01 3y ago
Given sunshine in Cuba it might not be necessary to finish. The for-profit grid feeding giant solar power station in Rajasthan, India is buying power at a rate under 3 cents per kWh, and the private capital that put up the money to build it still has an ROI that pencils out. A hundred million dollars of ground mount photovoltaics in Cuba might do a lot more good than spending money to finish a possibly obsolete design nuclear reactor.
- illiarian 3y ago
  It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.
  - walrus01 3y ago
    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.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      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.

lentil_soup 3y ago

> in such an economy the majority of workers will be glad to take a bribe > gesturing to our cameras, making a meaningful pat of his wallet inside his pocket > It might have been the presence of the work crew that deterred this man ... Perhaps the team of workers were looting the place I really hate this attitude, this feeling of superiority that because you're in a poorer country and you're rich and entitled you just go there and bribe people to satisfy your misery tourism. They wouldn't do this in say, London, but because it's some poor country it's cool to even brag about it. And not only that, they assume everyone is up for a bribe and even when they refuse it's because of some even bigger scam happening.

pjc50 3y ago
The London bribery rates are higher. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273
kelnos 3y ago
Fact of the matter is that bribery is common in many places, and, yes, often those places are poorer countries. Regardless, I think your judgment of the author is a little harsh. They even acknowledge and question their assumed superiority in the very next paragraph, which I think is refreshingly honest: > Of course, it was equally possible that the guard simply wouldn’t accept a bribe on moral grounds – and as we walked back to the car, I wondered whether it said more about me or about him, that this possibility only came as an afterthought.
danielfoster 3y ago
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.”

bipson 3y ago

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Pl... Completely finished, everything was ready, even the protective clothing and all employee contracts, fuel rods on standby, just never switched on due to popular vote (political miscalculation). "The most expensive museum in the world".

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sbaiddn 3y ago

Paraphrased: "I tried to bride the guard. But he refused. Probably because he'd already received a better bribe or was stealing. It only occurred to me later the possibility he might be honest. For a fleeting second, the thought crossed mg mind that I might be the criminal - but I shrugged it off and jumped over the fence and trespassed in." This attitude is slathered with contempt and superiority. Its also quite common among travelers. We act aghast when our "tourists" are arrested and sentenced to decades of jail or execution for drugs or taking pictures of sensitive installations. Good riddance! If you're unwilling to do the time obey the local laws or stay in your country!

trollerator23 3y ago
Yeah what the hell. F*k that guy.