Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Comments:

7 Comments

  1. I listened to the podcast while working and getting snowed-in here in South Jersey.

    It was interesting that one of the participants sounded surprised by the assertion that the government of technology vendor’s host country would be intimately involved in the negotiation, sale, and continued supply of spares/fuel/guidance/etc. Yes. Strings will be attached and they will be yanked willy-nilly by politicians, unless the customer is a first tier partner/peer nation, such as a non-Turkish NATO member. Similar strings would be attached Russian or Chinese purchases, no doubt… perhaps less strings and more threads from the Koreans or French. The mention of Russia educating Africans to grease future sales of nuclear equipment illustrates that they are playing a long game. Honestly though… I would like to see ‘up and coming’ nations like Poland follow a path of indigenous development like Argentina. This path is not developing technology in a vacuum; it requires robust international cooperation. There is no excuse for any country with +50M people to not procure and develop indigenous nuclear talent.

    1. Oh FFS, Rod.  You KNOW that what I am posting is true.  I am using public sources.  Just because you do not like the unwelcome conclusions does NOT give you any right to suppress the facts behind them.

      Now un-censor what you’ve censored and discuss it honestly.

      1. @EP

        power theft takes place all over the 2nd and 3rd world; it doesn’t happen to any extent in the 1st world where laws are enforced with gusto and some laws are enforced exclusively to fund law enforcement. An acquaintance of mine recently lost her dwelling after service transformer on the pole was overloaded by power thieves; it exploded and burnt down her home (Manila, PH). This country has a 2-loop WEC PWR (Bataan – near Mt. Pinatubo) that was completed and paid for, but never operated. Power is expensive there, but they don’t use much AC. I’ve heard anecdotes about rampant power theft in Latin American Favelas. As of 10-years ago, you could pay a guy to use a power drill to run back your electric meter in Romania – maybe that has since changed, but they operate a pair of CANDU there.

      2. power theft takes place all over the 2nd and 3rd world

        Yes, exactly.  This makes it far more difficult to recover costs of any generating plant, but especially those which have high capital costs.  If you can’t make it pay, either it gets subsidized by government or nobody’s going to build it.  Governments of poor countries aren’t flush with cash, so such infrastructure would have to be financed by what amounts to grants (or, in the case of China, predatory loans backed by other assets that China wants).

        If there’s a country below the Sahara where this isn’t the case, I haven’t heard of it.  Worst of all, all the smart people in those countries appear to be doing their best to get out.  If they’re all elsewhere, who’s going to do the construction, maintenance and operational work that requires smarts?

  2. Ace of Spades has a pro-nuke post up in response to the Green New Deal. They also link to a Forbes article that makes the case that “The Real Reason They Hate Nuclear Is Because It Means We Don’t Need Renewables.” For this argument to spill over into Ace is an interesting data point. Cheers –

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=379946

  3. HTGRs, high temperature gas reactors

    StarCore 14 MWe
    GFP, Global First Power, 5 MWe

    both submitted to the Canadians. These may have promise to replace natural gas burners as backup for wind power. Maybe a pair of threads, Rod?

Recent Comments from our Readers

  1. Avatar
  2. Avatar
  3. Avatar
  4. Avatar
  5. Avatar

Similar Posts