Decommissioning costs (including storage, disposal, and demolition) never seem to figure into these numbers.
The authors stated they were looking at the ability of a plant to displace CO2 emissions and using the net benefits to see which is the most cost effective. Wind and solar simply do not have the capacity factors to match hydro/nuke/gas plants and high capacity costs and thus are lees cost effective in reducing CO2. Nuclear decommissioning costs were included in their numbers. In short, solar and wind cost to much per KW to build and generate too little electricity to be cost effective in reducing CO2 emissions relative to other non-carbon energy sources.
While that is a laudable goal the reality is government owned utilities rarely view "cheapest amount possible" as a primary goal. Rather, they become tools for politicians to use to maintain themselves in office by providing jobs, subsidies , etc to please their voters and donors. That is not to say government owned utilities cannot provide lower cost services just that cost is often secondary to politics.
That is not my experience, mind pointing to examples? My experience with government owned utilities is exactly the opposite of what you claim. There are several local power companies owned by the city government, they are cheaper and better run than the corporate power utility that serves the rest of the area. After heavy storms they often have power restored in half the time of the private company. Did I mention the lower power rates? Government does a rats ass job of predicting demand and supply for widgets but they do a damn good job of predicting demand and allocating resources for major utilities like power companies because it's a pretty well fixed demand and is an essential service.
My comments come from working with execs at a number of public utilities. As I pointed out, political considerations often trump "cheapest rates." Many of them do not operate plants but buy power, often subsidized federal power that can't be sold to other markets at such rates.
People always trot out the old refrain you did, but I see little experience that it's true. Rather than accept that what you hear repeated so often is true you should try to find evidence that is true because you will probably be surprised at how often it's wrong.
You missed my point in your rush to label my response. I pointed out, in response to the OP, that "cheapest amount possible" are not necessarily the goal of a public utility given their political nature; not that they can't be cheaper than private power companies. Also note that many people confuse Rural Electrification Cooperatives and their brethren as public power when in fact they are not.
In the US, maybe. In other countries, not so much. Did you never notice how the childish attitudes your politicians display are far above the levels displayed in other countries' politicians? Sure, some countries have political freak shows, but many others just get on with it - working with other parties for the good of the country.
Possible, but my experiences with politicians around the world its the "do what I have to to stay in power" gene tends to be dominant and the "work together for the good of the country even if it means I may lose" gene is recessive.
Sure, the way Russians go about nationalizing companies is not very nice or even subtle. But I wish my government did the same. Services that people need in order to live - energy, water, medical - shouldn't be on the free market. All that stuff should be publicly owned and the goal shouldn't to be to make money but to provide critical services to the people for the cheapest amount possible.
While that is a laudable goal the reality is government owned utilities rarely view "cheapest amount possible" as a primary goal. Rather, they become tools for politicians to use to maintain themselves in office by providing jobs, subsidies , etc to please their voters and donors. That is not to say government owned utilities cannot provide lower cost services just that cost is often secondary to politics.
whatever you do do not let the techies run the project. This isn't a technical solution but a business solution. The techies may think a fit gap tells them what they need to know to build a system but the reality is unless someone one really understands Hal the system is used and what the LOB need you will wind up with a mess. The IT folks will focus on the IT aspects and forget there is a whole organizational component that can derail them even if the system works.
I've seen to many projects where the focus is on getting the system to work and when the users finally get involves it's " we don't do things this way and that's not what we need." The project points to the fit gap and or requirements and it's "that's how x does it be we do it this way. The requirement says that you just didn't do it right." At that point senior LOB management starts complaining IT is replacing a working system with a piece of crap. The order then comes down to fix it and you are stuck.
just over half of the Air Force military officers put in charge of U.S. Air Force nuclear launch facilities
The Navy maintains a reasonably large fleet of FBMs that are not manned by the Air Force.
...only if it's in Google's interest to block services like this instead of asking the victim to pay more money.
It is. If AdWords fail to provide a reasonable return people will stop using them and the price will drop significantly, cutting into Google's revenue. It's definitely in Google's best long term interest to stop this kind of thing.
Perhaps you don't understand how governments and large corporations structure themselves in order to save money: they use contractors instead of employees for exactly that reason.
Regardless of the disaster scenario, employee/employer rules stipulate they have to pay their employees during the time when they're normally expected to work, even if they can get no productive work from them. If they have extended downtime due to fire, construction, etc., They would have to lay off the unused workers, which means paying unemployment benefits. Contracts, on the other hand, can be written so they can be paused or terminated at will. It's up to the contracting firm to manage the pay when they're "sitting on the bench", and most of those contracts provide no compensation for periods of non-work.
On the flip side, when you are hired as a contractor, you explicitly sign up for those risks. Even though it may look like a regular job, it isn't. It's a contract.
The human side of the equation was carefully measured and surgically extracted back when the government decided to use contractors instead of employees. Employees cost too much.
Oh, I realize that quite well. Government employees are required to take leave as well in many such situations unless they can work from home. The contractors are actually hourly employees of a company that then contracts with the government. Since government contracts, on a T&E basis, cannot pay for time not worked no matter the reason the contractor gets no money and doesn't pay their employees (who are actually employees not contractors so despite your employer / employee assertion there is no requirement to pay them) either. Sure they may realize that but that still doesn't change there is an often forgotten human side to such events.
In the end, the professor, after writing thousands of words, comes to no conclusion.
He's an economist. That's his job.
The methodology of testing the hypothesis is to look for google searches about "iphone slow" or "samsung slow". Assumption made is if people search for "iphone slow" Apple might have done something to slow down iPhones. The control group is Samsung which has the same motive as Apple but not the means because it does not control the OS.
Actually, the data was gathered to see if the professor's view that his phone had slowed down was also shared by other iPhone users; they found an interesting correlation between search spikes and new iPhone models but were careful to say that doesn't prove anything other than people perceive a slowdown when a new phone comes out. He points out some valid reasons why the Samsung / Apple data differs, primarily that Apple releases a new version of IOS with the new iPhone and thus the new iOS may not be optimized for older hardware while many Android users remain on an older version. In addition, since the Andriod device makers don't control Android they may find it cheaper not to spend a lot of time on the OS and rather invest in hardware improvements as the differentiator.
As a simple analysis, Bose created and patented the noise-cancelling headphone. They made it and marketed that rather directly as noise-cancelling headphones, initially and specifically designed to do one thing..
Not really, the concept had been around a while, and pilots had been using them long before the first pair of Bose QCs hit the market. Bose, while he did a lot of research into ANR, popularized them for use outside of the cockpit. IMHO Bose are way overpriced, you can get a set of Audio Technica, or a if you prefer an open ear design, Sennheisers that cancel noise quite well for half the price of the Bose . A Sennheiser BT for about the same price but with BT. Al of them also work as regular headphones when the battery dies, unlike the Bose QCs.
"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds