5 ms·

If we’re worried about cost overruns, then perhaps cancel the California high speed rail boondoggle. That project could buy several nuclear reactors.

api 3y ago
I have a very strong impression that the perpetual money pits of California (rail, the amount spent on homelessness without progress, etc.) aren’t bugs but features… for someone. That money is going into someone’s pocket.
- icelancer 3y ago
  As usual it's some from Column A and B. Hard to tell sometimes what is graft and what is incompetence.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    A little of A, B, and C. A) Idealistic voters with little interest in detail or execution. B) Hard working state employees executing in an ineffective way because they are working on over constrained problems with conflicting and sometime impossible goals. C) A number of opportunists that take advantage of poor rulemaking and bureaucratic disorganization. For what it is worth, I dont think corruption is a major driver of problems, but bad policy detached from the practical considerations. One simple example is SF parks maintenance: The city wants to keep invasive species out, so it has staff to remove them. The city also believes in livable wages, so the workers make >100K. Residents dont like pesticides, so the workers must hand weed. Hand weeding doesnt work, so the City periodically also pays outside consultants to come in and take care of the invasives (with pesticides and low paid workers).
    - mlrtime 3y ago
      >The city wants to keep invasive species out... These small examples are extremely frustrating as a tax payer. What is the solution to these examples, or does one just try to ignore it as a price of living in that society?
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Frustrating indeed. I don't think there is a quick fix to create a political culture among voters and representatives that cares about fiscal responsibility. One consideration is having a broader tax base so that voters have more skin in the game. For example, taxes in Houston are less progressive than SF, but SF city budget per resident is more than 500% that of Huston.
        zbrozek 3y ago
        How do we get to a more decisive government that doesn't try to make everything a priority (especially things that are at odds with each other)? Is it to reduce direct participation and rely on representation (remove public hearings)? The $1.7M public toilet was a painful example showing how far off the rails we are. Should auditors and controllers have some teeth? What would they be?
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Our electeds simply don't care what anything costs, and as a result we have (probably) the worst cost disease on the planet.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > electeds simply don't care what anything costs California has a referendum system. That so few referendums focus on cutting costs says something about its voters’ priorities.
    - zbrozek 3y ago
      Sure does! That's why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection. On the other hand, the state is losing population on an absolute basis (and relatively even more so against a backdrop of national growth). So some folks are voting with their feet. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I'm free enough to do the same.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection I’m arguing the opposite. The voters have the tools to oppose the state government’s size. That they don’t use them signals support in broad terms.
        aspenmayer 3y ago
        I’d agree with you with the caveat that such public support is mediated by regulatory capture on all sides and from all quarters: outside the government by industry and lobbyists, within the government by elected officials, and adjacent to/despite the government by a public apathetic to such issues and/or voting against its own shared/collective interests in favor of individual interests. Participation in local and state politics even in California is not common beyond voting, which is a low bar to clear. Much of media messaging in the area of referendums is focused on niche issues and special interests, and serves to highlight and promote those issues to convert NIMBYs to YIMBYs or vice-versa on those specific narrow issues. Agreement in broad terms like you mention is hard to achieve due to the difficulty in drafting referendum legislation texts such that they will withstand a challenge by the state attorney general as well as state Supreme Court, as well as having the resulting referendum achieve enough signatures to make it on the ballot and have enough recognition and support by voters to actually pass and become law. One key difference that I do like about the CA referendum process is that laws passed by referendum in California are equal to the state constitution and require 2/3 supermajority in state congress to modify or change, just like the state constitution itself. This avoids many attempts by legislature to foil or spoil the will of the voters’ referendums, in contrast to other state referendum processes which are only considered a law passed by other means and are usually able to be modified by simple majority.
solarpunk 3y ago
Probably best to diversify infrastructure investment across... multiple projects.
danans 3y ago
The difference is that there are many cheaper viable alternatives to the firm power that nuclear provides, including renewables+batteries ($60/MWh and dropping) and enhanced geothermal ($80/MWh and dropping). Heck, even natural gas combined-cycle + carbon capture/storage is cheaper on an LCOE basis (~$60/MWh) than nuclear ($180/MWh and rising) [1]. It would be great if nuclear could be cost competitive for equivalently firm power, but its costs are increasing, not decreasing. In contrast, the only real alternative to air travel for high speed transportation between Northern and Southern CA is high speed rail. The "Hyperloop" has been exposed (charitably) as a failure, and personal vehicle travel (even electrified) is not an equivalent to HSR in a state as big as CA. None of that is to say that the CA HSR project has been well planned/executed or that the costs have been well estimated. But that doesn't obviate the need for high speed ground transport in the state. 1. https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... (pages 2 and 31)
- mpweiher 3y ago
  Oh good grief, not that Lazard "study" again. They took the cost to build Vogtle, which is one of the most or even the most expensive outlier in terms of time/cost overruns of all time, and decided to make that the baseline for "the cost of nuclear power". When the average time to build a nuclear reactor in the world has consistently been around 7.5 years. For the last 50 years, and also for the ones that came online in 2022, lest you think these were just the bygone good old days. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Which new nuclear would you suggest instead? Hinkley C will cost about $160/MWh, right in the range given by Lazard.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      I would suggest we look at overall stats instead of isolated examples. Time to construct a nuclear plant takes on average 7.5 years, a number that hasn't really budged in the last 50 years. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi... And since financing (i.e. interest) is the primary cost of nuclear (~50%), time is money. Hinkley and Flamanville are examples of the EPR, a brand new reactor type that is both at the start of its learning curve, always problematic, and also apparently a design that is particularly difficult to build. And both Europe and the US haven't really built any nuclear plants for quite a long time, so the know-how to build them is just not there. Oh, and the regulators sometimes change regulations after parts of the plants have been built so they have to tear down what they have built and start again. These are obviously all solvable problems, and mostly solvable by just building more. The problem is that we didn't build enough. Just build more.

api 3y ago

I have a very strong impression that the perpetual money pits of California (rail, the amount spent on homelessness without progress, etc.) aren’t bugs but features… for someone. That money is going into someone’s pocket.

icelancer 3y ago
As usual it's some from Column A and B. Hard to tell sometimes what is graft and what is incompetence.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  A little of A, B, and C. A) Idealistic voters with little interest in detail or execution. B) Hard working state employees executing in an ineffective way because they are working on over constrained problems with conflicting and sometime impossible goals. C) A number of opportunists that take advantage of poor rulemaking and bureaucratic disorganization. For what it is worth, I dont think corruption is a major driver of problems, but bad policy detached from the practical considerations. One simple example is SF parks maintenance: The city wants to keep invasive species out, so it has staff to remove them. The city also believes in livable wages, so the workers make >100K. Residents dont like pesticides, so the workers must hand weed. Hand weeding doesnt work, so the City periodically also pays outside consultants to come in and take care of the invasives (with pesticides and low paid workers).
  - mlrtime 3y ago
    >The city wants to keep invasive species out... These small examples are extremely frustrating as a tax payer. What is the solution to these examples, or does one just try to ignore it as a price of living in that society?
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Frustrating indeed. I don't think there is a quick fix to create a political culture among voters and representatives that cares about fiscal responsibility. One consideration is having a broader tax base so that voters have more skin in the game. For example, taxes in Houston are less progressive than SF, but SF city budget per resident is more than 500% that of Huston.
      - zbrozek 3y ago
        How do we get to a more decisive government that doesn't try to make everything a priority (especially things that are at odds with each other)? Is it to reduce direct participation and rely on representation (remove public hearings)? The $1.7M public toilet was a painful example showing how far off the rails we are. Should auditors and controllers have some teeth? What would they be?
zbrozek 3y ago
Our electeds simply don't care what anything costs, and as a result we have (probably) the worst cost disease on the planet.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > electeds simply don't care what anything costs California has a referendum system. That so few referendums focus on cutting costs says something about its voters’ priorities.
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    Sure does! That's why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection. On the other hand, the state is losing population on an absolute basis (and relatively even more so against a backdrop of national growth). So some folks are voting with their feet. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I'm free enough to do the same.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection I’m arguing the opposite. The voters have the tools to oppose the state government’s size. That they don’t use them signals support in broad terms.
      - aspenmayer 3y ago
        I’d agree with you with the caveat that such public support is mediated by regulatory capture on all sides and from all quarters: outside the government by industry and lobbyists, within the government by elected officials, and adjacent to/despite the government by a public apathetic to such issues and/or voting against its own shared/collective interests in favor of individual interests. Participation in local and state politics even in California is not common beyond voting, which is a low bar to clear. Much of media messaging in the area of referendums is focused on niche issues and special interests, and serves to highlight and promote those issues to convert NIMBYs to YIMBYs or vice-versa on those specific narrow issues. Agreement in broad terms like you mention is hard to achieve due to the difficulty in drafting referendum legislation texts such that they will withstand a challenge by the state attorney general as well as state Supreme Court, as well as having the resulting referendum achieve enough signatures to make it on the ballot and have enough recognition and support by voters to actually pass and become law. One key difference that I do like about the CA referendum process is that laws passed by referendum in California are equal to the state constitution and require 2/3 supermajority in state congress to modify or change, just like the state constitution itself. This avoids many attempts by legislature to foil or spoil the will of the voters’ referendums, in contrast to other state referendum processes which are only considered a law passed by other means and are usually able to be modified by simple majority.

solarpunk 3y ago

Probably best to diversify infrastructure investment across... multiple projects.

danans 3y ago

The difference is that there are many cheaper viable alternatives to the firm power that nuclear provides, including renewables+batteries ($60/MWh and dropping) and enhanced geothermal ($80/MWh and dropping). Heck, even natural gas combined-cycle + carbon capture/storage is cheaper on an LCOE basis (~$60/MWh) than nuclear ($180/MWh and rising) [1]. It would be great if nuclear could be cost competitive for equivalently firm power, but its costs are increasing, not decreasing. In contrast, the only real alternative to air travel for high speed transportation between Northern and Southern CA is high speed rail. The "Hyperloop" has been exposed (charitably) as a failure, and personal vehicle travel (even electrified) is not an equivalent to HSR in a state as big as CA. None of that is to say that the CA HSR project has been well planned/executed or that the costs have been well estimated. But that doesn't obviate the need for high speed ground transport in the state. 1. https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... (pages 2 and 31)

mpweiher 3y ago
Oh good grief, not that Lazard "study" again. They took the cost to build Vogtle, which is one of the most or even the most expensive outlier in terms of time/cost overruns of all time, and decided to make that the baseline for "the cost of nuclear power". When the average time to build a nuclear reactor in the world has consistently been around 7.5 years. For the last 50 years, and also for the ones that came online in 2022, lest you think these were just the bygone good old days. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...
- adrianN 3y ago
  Which new nuclear would you suggest instead? Hinkley C will cost about $160/MWh, right in the range given by Lazard.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    I would suggest we look at overall stats instead of isolated examples. Time to construct a nuclear plant takes on average 7.5 years, a number that hasn't really budged in the last 50 years. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi... And since financing (i.e. interest) is the primary cost of nuclear (~50%), time is money. Hinkley and Flamanville are examples of the EPR, a brand new reactor type that is both at the start of its learning curve, always problematic, and also apparently a design that is particularly difficult to build. And both Europe and the US haven't really built any nuclear plants for quite a long time, so the know-how to build them is just not there. Oh, and the regulators sometimes change regulations after parts of the plants have been built so they have to tear down what they have built and start again. These are obviously all solvable problems, and mostly solvable by just building more. The problem is that we didn't build enough. Just build more.