Bingo. Uprating is a standard practice after a controls upgrade, and is often the very reason you perform a controls upgrade.

~Sticky

Because people are stupid.

~Sticky

~Sticky

Isn't it obvious that this guy is getting a kickback from the sales of these B.S. rods? Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, Esquire, is getting a percentage of every rod sold to the Iraqi government. This is why he has to endorse them! $10 bucks says he OKs every procurement of these rods personally.

His grandiose statements ("I know more about bombs than anyone in the world"), his reliance on personal opinion ("I don't care what Sandia, et al, say"), his inability to accept the facts in front of him ("you need more training"), and his position within the government make this an obvious conclusion. Which is why he is being investigated. I hope the Washington Post writes a follow-up when he bails out of Iraq with his immoral gains.

Just as you don't attribute to negligence what stupidity can easily explain, you don't attribute to stupidity was GREED can easily explain.

~Sticky
//DUH!

~Sticky

You gets no love.

Tagged:noLoveForDanKaminsky

~Sticky

It's the freaking Air Force, the IT branch of the military. The normal run of the mill Air Force recruit's combat training is 15 minutes with an M-16 and then 18 weeks of procurement training.

~Sticky

Whoops, got a little ahead of myself.

MW Hours, not MW for #6.

~Sticky

Jeez. Where do I even start....
1. Don't reference Other Countries nuclear programs. This is the United States, where the costs of regulation, permitting, licensing, buying land, paying off neighbors, etc outweigh the material cost of a reactor. Don't compare France. Japan, Korea, or all those others, to the US, it's apples and oranges when it comes to nuclear acceptance. The issue was a wind farm in the US, not France. A nuke in America costs 30-40 billion dollars, stem to stern, full cost. That's the cost of a FULL COMPLETE nuke plant(including water treatment, balance of plant, turbines, etc), but I'll forgive your ignorance on that. People who read wikipedia and don't know power generation often make that mistake.

2. You got your numbers wrong: Financing referenced in that wikipedia article is only for construction phase, which is the CHEAPEST part of building a nuke. Permitting isn't there, startup (which is WAY expensive) isn't there, commissioning (which is RIDICULOUS expensive) isn't there, NRC approval and licensing (which is THE most expensive piece) isn't there. If you worked for a utility or in the nuclear industry (like me) you'd know this.

3. If you want to reference a source, use one with some TEETH. Something like http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nuclearpower.html, or http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/82975.pdf. Some dipshit's blog doesn't count, especially when he admits a full bias and doesn't disclose his credentials. BTW: I'm a computer engineer with 5 years of experience in control systems, power generation, and the economics of electric power.

4. Seriously? OFFSHORE wind farm budget numbers up against LAND BASED wind farms? Lets' see, we'll put a wind technology that is designed, constructed, and operated in one of the most harsh environments on the planet, which you have to helicopter maintenance personnel into, against a wind technology that is built on solid ground, with standard materials, and can be maintained with guys in trucks. Gee, that's a real valid comparison. My wind numbers are accurate, I know because I work in the industry.

5. Fine. Assume that they produce 1500 MW 10% of the time instead of 90%. Still a break even with my ACCURATE numbers.

6. Definitely not an engineer. Megawatts are always comparable, they are absolute quantities. A MW produced by a wind farm is the same MW produced by a nuke. Yes, while wind provides a smaller percentage of it's capacity factor when compared to nuclear, that can be (supposedly) be defeated with large numbers of geographically dispersed wind farms.

Nukes cost a lot of money. That is the operational reality. Get over it. Until someone decides that nukes are a good investment for their cost, we will not see a nuke plant. Other countries can do what they like, they are 20 years ahead of us. The NRC rules all, and nobody wants to finance something we can't figure out how to get rid of the waste for. And that's sad, because nuclear power is the future of baseload generation and will help end our dependence on fossil fuels.

~Sticky

Seriously man. You have no idea how utilities finance their capital investments. Payback is:
1) In terms of decades, not years. The cost of a wind farm will be spent in loan payments over at least 30 years.
2) Subsidized by government. 70-80% of the cost is recoverable in tax credits over the first 10 years. At least in the US, but Canada does similar.

Cost of contingency reserve (which is the 450 MW gas plant) is factored into that, because intermittent generation carries with it a penalty on the market. BUT this penalty isn't enough to cause them to be unprofitable.

Wind power is ridiculous cheap because the fuel is free; the only cost is maintenance and upkeep (which is normally under contract from the vendor and included in the purchase price for at least 5 years. In Texas, they take entire plants offline when the wind is blowing hard, that's how cheap it is. Your estimate of 253/MWH for wind generation is ridiculous. BUT, if you were to look at October peaks from last year (http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/download/GenWeightedAvePrice_20090717.xls), spot price gets as high as $400/MWh. Even with your monkey math, there are instances where wind generation can make a killing.

And don't pick an abstract price to show your "knowledge" of the electricity market. Prices for electricity on the free market aren't constant, they change during the day. Ontario's electric market price at almost 9:00 CST is going to be ridiculously low, that's the fact of life. Take a look at noon, almost $40/MWH. Most commercial businesses are in sleep mode, families are turning in for the night, it's what we call a low peak demand. And at low peak demand, you can actually run into situations where a utility will actually PAY people to use their generation. Plus, OPG is mainly hydro with some coal and gas. Ridiculous cheap hydro power will trump almost anything.

No disagreements. All the tax credits suck money out of taxpayers. But what the hell, why not?

Now a Carbon footprint. THAT'S a crock of shit right there.

~Sticky

Nuclear power plants in the 1500 Megawatt range cost 30-40 Billion dollars just to build.

Wind Farms in the 1500 Megawatt range cost 300-400 million dollars to build.

Put in the zeros:
40,000,000,000 vs 400,000,000....

For the price of one 1500 Megawatt nuclear plant, we can build 100 1500 megawatt wind farms.... 1500 MW Care to revise your argument?

~Sticky

It's a market thing. You aren't 'storing' you are selling high and buying low. This is a valid and established tactic in the power generation game. Go get educated : http://www.amazon.com/Market-Operations-Electric-Power-Systems/dp/0471443379

But the wind doesn't care when the price is high, and doesn't always cooperate when the price is low...

~Sticky

Even though the USA and Mexican power networks have the same fundamental power frequencies (i.e. 60 Hz), they operate out of sync and can't simply "connect". To get around this, companies install a High Voltage Direct Current system (HVDC) or a Variable Frequency Transformer (VFT). However, these connections are VERY limited in what they can bring across due to the nature of the equipment. HVDC installations are many many more times the price of conventional substations, and usually have a lower capacity due to the type and complexity of equipment necessary (thyristor banks can only handle so much current). Additionally, HVDC only becomes cost effective after 100s of miles, short distances are very inefficient. VFT installations are incredibly maintenance intensive, they are basically massive electric motor-generator pairs, Mexican electricity spins a drive and US electricity is generated in sync on the other side, with severe losses due to friction heating and other mechanical stresses. Current VFT design is limited at 100MW, making it cheaper to just build a small gas fired plant (especially in Texas).

HVDC/VFT installations are pretty expensive, and when it comes down to it, the cost of electricity in Mexico is probably pretty similar to the US. It's not like Mexico gets a cheaper deal on fossil fuels, they buy natural gas from the same places we do. Plus their operational efficiency is nowhere near ours, which washes out our issues with labor and environmental compliance (in Texas, it's really not that bad. Apparently Texans are fine with pollution). These HVDC/VFT ties cost a lot to build and operate, so the providers charge a lot to move electricity across them. Additionally, the US cannot rely on Mexican power in the same way we rely on Canadian power, so additional capacity has to be reserved for these connections, which costs even more money. It's the reliability issue, and reliability is what caused the Northeast Blackout's cascading outages in 2003.

That's why.

~Sticky

Cause at $1.5-2.0 Million per mile for 30 miles of transmission line, they are looking at around $45-60 Million for 115KV transmission out there. Add another $10 Million to add to the 138KV sub in Dalheart, at least another $15 million for their own substation near the wind farm, plus another $10 Million for interconnections between wind turbines and the wind substation. Settling any right of way issues, better budget at least $5 million. And add in 10% for miscellaneous changes and unforeseen consequences. Plus another 10% for the program management....

We're talking $100-115 million dollars being spent on transmission line construction, and this all before this project makes any money. Plus, THREE YEARS? I know you are marketing to the venture capitalists, but I don't think so, try 5 years minimum.

And this is BEFORE costs per wind turbine, which run in the $2-3 Million per turbine due to them being in high demand right now. So that's another $200-300 Million on top of that. Tax credits will shave off almost 70-80% of the purchase price of the turbines over 10 years though. Didn't know we taxpayers were subsidizing this construction, didya?

WANTED: Investors with serious balls. Require big brass ones, with money to spend in a shite economy. Will not receive return on investment for at least 5 years if ever. This is Texas, Wussies, Pussies, and Wimps need not apply...

~Sticky

~Sticky
/Step 2: Reprogram nano-bots to consume Earth...