Legalectric

The best news I’ve had lately is that Komanoff is back at it and laying out the essential differences between “Cap & TRADE” (BAD) and “Cap& TAX” (GOOD). He gets it — do you?? Here’s the Carbon Tax site. More on this soon.
I was just indulging in a little Komanoff in the tub (Power Plant Cost Escalation) and found this snippet that rings so true about coal gasification and the spiraling out of sight costs — and in dealing with those promoting IGCC when they haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. The cost estimates for IGCC are way off for the same reasons that was an issue in nuclear — we’re stuck in the 70’s folks, overbuilding, trying to get approval for capacity we don’t need, and on the brink getting mired in Dogawful messes:

The failure to predict accurately nuclear capital costs reflects a fundamental limiation in the power industry’s technique of engineering estimation, which employs conceptual plant designs to calculate the labor, materials, equipment, and engineering effort to build a plant. The technique requires that the scope of work be known at the start of construction, yet nuclear plants, as the larges reactor builder has noted, are subject to “new requirements… imposed after the design and construction are well advanced, requiring substantial rework that increases both the schedule and cost.

Yeah, DUH, but the cost estimates are so far off, and it’s only going to get worse if they actually try to build one of these fool things somewhere. Substitute IGCC for nuclear and there you have it! How many “lessons learned” at Wabash River? How many full-time engineers does it take to cobble Wabash together?

I can’t get over the aspects shared by nuclear of the 70’s and coal of 2006. We really don’t need to do this all over again.