Is SSP Competitive with Nuclear?

Maybe.

Peter Sage, in a talk [part one]at the TED conference and elsewhere, points out that nuclear power plants take 5-10 years and cost $4-10 billion to build, from $300 million to as much as $6 billion to decommission [ref], and $4-6 billion for fuel and operation. This does not include waste disposal. We've been building nuclear power plants for 50 years and this industry has received untold billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Now consider that

• Japan recently announced a $21 billion/20 year program to build a 1 GW space solar power (SSP, aka SBSP) system. The dollar figure is a target, not an estimate.
  
• After two years of analysis and a couple million dollars, Space Energy Inc. believes it can build a 1GW SSP system for $16 billion.
  
• Perhaps more important, PG&E -- a major California utility -- announced a deal with Solaren Corp. to begin purchasing 200 MW of space solar power around 2016 -- seven years from now.
  

It appears that the most expensive nuclear plants are expected to cost about as much as the least expensive SSP systems. As many incorrectly believe that SSP is a thousand times more expensive than current systems, this is a revelation.

There are a couple of issues to consider in this comparison:

• Nuclear power plant costs are well known.
  
• SSP costs are estimates, and estimates of new space system costs are usually low.
  
• Nuclear power plants can pay for fuel and decommissioning out of revenues.
  
• Almost all of the costs of SSP are upfront and must be financed.
  

However, with nuclear power plants we have fifty years of experience telling us costs are not likely to drop very much. The SSP estimates are for the first system, and costs will almost certainly drop a great deal for the second and even more for subsequent systems. Furthermore, SSP has received very little government help, perhaps $80 million over 30 years. Nuclear received, for example, $13 billion in loan guarantees just a few years ago, and fusion research receives roughly $400 million in Department of Energy funding a year.

When considering building new energy plants, SSP looks, very roughly -- say a factor of two or three, about as good as nuclear power from a strictly financial point of view. However, SSP

• is a new technology with huge growth potential.
  
• involves no fuel, much less radioactive fuel.
  
• produces no operational wastes.
  
• is all but invulnerable to terrorist attack.
  
• is generally environmentally far more friendly than nuclear.
  

SSP has received almost no government assistance. It could use government research and development, help allocating frequencies for power transmission, help getting land for ground antenna, and perhaps even a prize system.

If you think SSP deserves more government help, email Steven Chu, the head of the Department of Energy, at The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov and let him know.

Bottom line: SSP may be, very roughly, competitive with nuclear for new energy plants now.

A Sensible Space Program

NASA's human space flight program budget for 2010 is about $10 billion (see NASA budget). The Obama administration asked a commission to look at what could be done within that budget, and the Augustine report came out with a number of options. However, only two of those options can, apparently, be accomplished for $10 billion/year -- neither of which does more than operate the International Space Station (ISS) and build a new launcher with no funded missions. No human trips to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or anywhere else in the next decade or two. The commission then listed a number of possibilities that could be accomplished for $13 billion/year. Unfortunately, we're going bankrupt and really shouldn't increase non-essential spending.

If the human space flight program can't do much for $10 billion a year, then maybe it's time to look elsewhere for space development. We are just finishing the ISS at a total cost of something like $100 billion, so it would be silly to throw it away. Fortunately, the ISS 'only' costs about $2 billion/year, plus money to pay the Russians or American private companies to fly astronauts and equipment to and fro once the space shuttle is retired next year, say another $1 billion/year. Well utilized, the ISS could potentially produce useful biomedical research (there is at least one medication derived from ISS research that is starting trials), materials research, and technology test beds such as the recently cancelled space solar power demonstration project.

If the ISS costs $3 billion per year to operate, that leaves $7 billion/year for something else. The commission tells us this isn't enough to send a very small number of people to the Moon or Mars, so we should either reduce government expenditures or find something useful that $7 billion could do. I have proposed a $21 billion prize program to develop space solar power. This program is guaranteed to deliver at least 21 space power satellites or our money back. If successful, three years of money to not send a small number of people beyond Earth orbit may get space solar power up and running. This would have a revolutionary impact on energy and climate change problems as space solar power is very clean and available in gigantic quantities for the next few billion years.

Which do you think would benefit America, or for that matter, the world, more?

Finally, here's the kicker. A major reason NASA can't put people on the Moon or Mars with $10 billion a year is that transportation (launch) from Earth to orbit is expensive, several thousand dollars per pound. Launch is expensive because there aren't very many, fewer than 100 per year. Consider what a car would cost if the whole planet took only 100 car rides per year, total. If space solar power were successful, it would create a profitable market for many thousands of launches per year and the price would come down -- then NASA could put people on the Moon and Mars for much less than $10 billion per year.

So you don't even have to choose, you just have to be optimistic and believe that we can do pretty much anything the laws of physics allow if we really want to. America has the most capable aerospace industry in the world, some of the most dynamic entrepreneurs, and a desire for energy and a clean environment. With space solar power we have a shot, not a certainty, but a shot, at drastically reducing carbon emissions, becoming a major energy exporter, and a few years later putting people on the Moon and Mars. We just need to put $21 billion in escrow for a few years and pay it out if someone delivers on the dream. If they don't we get our money back.

Now that's a deal.

Changing My Mind on Health Care

Before reading "The Healing of America" by T.R. Reid I had come to the reluctant conclusion that single-payer health care was the only way to go. Employer-based health care seemed absurd since if you really get sick, you can't work and lose your job -- and your health care.

Reid's book convinced me that employer-based health care can work, and can work very well. This is the case because it works very well in Germany, Switzerland, France and Japan. Everybody is covered, no one is denied treatment, it costs much less than in the U.S., the outcomes are very good, and people don't go bankrupt over medical bills.

Reid has a bad shoulder. He went to England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and India to treat his shoulder and compare the local health care systems (he also went to an American doctor). All these countries (except India) spend less than America, have better outcomes, and cover everyone. However, their systems are quite different. In England the government owns everything and nobody pays a dime, like our Veterans Administration. In Canada the government pays for everything, but the private sector performs the service like our Medicare and Medicaid. India is an out-of-pocket place, like Americans without insurance. Germany, France, Switzerland, and Japan have employer-based systems like most Americans. While the foreign employer-based systems have significant differences, they are all much different from ours in that:

Basic insurance is a non-profit business. In some systems insurance companies can offer supplementary coverage for a profit, but the purpose of the basic insurance business is to pay for health care, not make a profit.

The industry is heavily regulated. The price of most or all procedures is usually fixed in negotiations with the government each year. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage or refuse payment for procedures.

Costs are transparent. For example, on the wall of every French medical facility there is a list of the procedures they perform, the cost, and how much the government will reimburse. In Germany, every doctor has access to a single database with all the procedures and their prices.

If you lose your job, the government usually picks up the employer part of the premiums.

Insurance coverage is mandatory for everyone.

Administration is simple. In France, everyone has a smart card that all providers have equipment to read. In Germany there is a single database with all patient records.

There were some interesting parts to the systems. For example,

In France, you pay for medical procedures in full at the time of the service. Your insurance company must reimburse you by the end of the month.

In Germany, the insurance premium is 15% of salary, paid in part by your employer (or the government).

In Germany the wealthiest citizens are not required to have medical insurance. The reasoning is that they can afford whatever it costs regardless.

In Germany, everyone can choose from over 200 different insurance companies.

Switzerland had a U.S.-like system until the early 90's, when America rejected health care reform. Switzerland had the same problems we have now: many without coverage, skyrocketing costs, companies denying coverage, etc. Unlike America, Switzerland introduced compulsory coverage and forced the insurance companies to offer basic, well-defined coverage without profit. It works very well.

With Reid's book in mind the current health care reform movement in America has a glaring flaw: all the other employer-based systems require non-profit basic health insurance, heavily regulate prices and procedures covered, transparency and simple administration. Maybe what's coming out of Congress will work, I certainly hope so. However, experience overseas suggests that we are leaving out key components of what is known to work well.

Oh, Reid tells us one other thing. The American health care system is the laughing stock of the world. Whenever anyone criticizes the German, English, Canadian, or other system, the standard response is: our system has problems, but it's not nearly as bad as in America.

America's Economy Fails the Average Man

According to Time magazine, October 26 issue, in 2008 the median male income was $46,367 but in 1972 his income was $46,956 (adjusting for inflation). In 36 years of economic development the net gain for the average Joe was negative! All of the increase in average family income came from women entering the workforce.

What's happening, of course, is that all the economic gains of the last three to four decades have accrued to the wealthiest people in this country (as a group). I believe there is a simple reason: the wealthy and powerful control the accounting system, the systems that decide who gets what. Not surprisingly, they direct all the gains to themselves -- a point Ron Paul made during the last election.

What is surprising is that the rest of America is putting up with it. The accounting system is, after all, the creation of our collective mind. Why keep a system that doesn't benefit most people? Ron Paul and I disagree about a lot, but this one thing he's got right. We need to take control of the accounting system and insure that the economic gains this country has made and is making are shared by all working people, not just a few fat cats.

The Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama

What the prize says is that the world now believes that America is a force for peace, in stark contrast to the way we have been viewed since the invasion of Iraq. As the struggle with al Qaeda is, above all, a struggle for perceived moral superiority (see the US Army Marine Corp Counterinsurgency Field Manual), this is very good news indeed -- regardless of whether President Obama 'deserved' the award or not.

Medicare is Government Health Care

Medicare is a single-payer, government health care program. This simple fact, if known, would likely cool the jets of most of the angry anti-health care reform shouters at town hall meetings.

Many of the shouters are obviously on Medicare, but they don't seem to know that they are in a single-payer government health care system. At one of the town halls there was a sign saying "Keep the government out of my Medicare!" At another, the congresswoman asked for a show of hands: "Who's on Medicare?" Half the audience raises their hand. "Who's happy with it?" most hands stay up. "Who wants government health care?" most of the hands go down. "Do you know that Medicare is a government program?" Booing -- they don't believe it! They are dead wrong. We need to repeat one simple fact -- Medicare is government health care -- over and over and over and over until it penetrates their consciousness. This will take time.

A couple years ago I had a knock-down-drag-out argument with three of my conservative neighbors trying to convince them that members of the U.S. Navy were government employees. It didn't matter that their commander is the U.S. President. It didn't matter that weapons are bought and paychecks are cut from federal tax dollars by the U.S. Treasury. It didn't matter that the "U.S." in U.S. Navy stands for the United States Government. I couldn't convince them. In their minds government employees are lazy incompetents, but members of the military are brave, hyper-competent defenders of freedom -- how could they also be government employees? But they are.

If you don't have the critical facts right, you will come to the wrong conclusions and make poor decisions. The fact is that a huge number of Americans are on single-payer government health care programs. Those over 65 and the disabled are on Medicare. The poor are on Medicaid. These are both private-provider-government-payment, but many Americans are on government-owned healthcare: namely, the military are taken care of by doctors on a government salary and veterans can get care at government owned clinics and hospitals. For the most part, Americans in single-payer government health programs get pretty good care.

Why not the rest of us?

Health Care Falsehood

A recent Wall Street Journal article claimed that "comparative effectiveness research," an important part of keeping medical costs down, is code for letting old folks die rather than treating them. In addition, many on the conservative right are claiming that government health care will result in seniors being left to die rather than receive treatment.

These are both false.

First, "comparative effectiveness research" simply means comparing the effectiveness of two or more treatments for the same condition. The drug companies hate this, and for good reason. It's quite possible that independent research along these lines will discover that the drug they just spent a half billion dollars developing is no more effective than aspirin. To get FDA approval a drug needs to be reasonably safe and more effective than a sugar pill. No test comparing effectiveness with existing treatments is required. While the drug companies save a lot of lives and relieve a lot of suffering, if cheap treatments are better than expensive treatments they'll just have to deal with it.

Claiming that government health care is meant to kill seniors is truly bizarre. Why? Because seniors are already on government health care: it's called medicare. Medicare gives us a clue as to why the attack on health care reform is so vociferous: medicare has a 3% administrative overhead; meaning that about 97% of medicare costs are for doctors, nurses, drugs, hospitals and so on and only 3% goes to paper pushers. The private insurance companies have a roughly 25% administrative overhead.

That 22% difference in overhead means that someone, somewhere is getting roughly $220 billion dollars a year (1) not for treating patients, but for unnecessary administrating. Nobody gives up that kind of money without a fight, and the insurance companies are currently spending $1.3 million per day to stop health care reform, or at least slow it down. Sure the present system costs a fortune and doesn't deliver very good results, but some folks are making boatloads of money.

Not only are the anti-reform lobbyists doing the usual stuff, but one started the 'deather' rumor that a reformed health care system would kill seniors. They have also organized masses of hecklers at congressional town halls to shout down proponents of sensible reform. This is serious money and those receiving all these wasted dollars seem to be willing to do anything to keep it going into their pockets.

Those receiving that $220 billion a year recently won a great victory -- they delayed reform for a month while Congress goes on recess. That means at least $18 billion more in their pocket, more if they can delay a few more months. The whole $220 billion a year if they can stop it.

Don't forget who's paying those billions of dollars of unnecessary overhead: you are. Let your representatives in Congress know that the current health care system is the most expensive in the world, helps drive one million Americans a year into bankruptcy, plays a roll in 18,000 deaths a year of people who can't afford treatment, and -- worst of all -- doesn't deliver a healthy America.

NOTES

(1) This is a rough figure. Assuming $2 trillion total medical costs, 50% paid by the government, 22% of the private part works out to $220 billion.