Nuclear decomissioning
I think I have mentioned this before but it's well worth mentioning again.
Nuclear generated electricity may be a good thing in the eyes of many and to be honest I am firmly on the fence as to whether I want the UK to follow the current nuclear policy or not, except for one thing. The cost of
decomissioning former nuclear power stations is astronomical. Clearly I don't have any real idea of what is involved in this decomissioning beyond the basics but are you aware that the cost of decomissioning our current power stations is running at around £73 billion? Moreover, are you also aware that that amount is on the increase?
I asked someone a while ago to tell me whether these decomissioning costs are included in the calculations of the cost per kiloWatthour produced and so on but got no answer. Given that these decomissioning costs have risen by £17 billion since 2003, that's a crucial aspect of the nuclear power generation debate.
In addition to the cost per unit and the escalation of the decomissioning costs, what about the possibility that the private sector companies that are given the contracts to run the nuclear power stations run out of money for decomissioning? Like the nightmare secenario we are being encouraged to think about vis a vis Norther Rock: billions and billions of Pounds in decomissioning costs left at the door of the British taxpayer. Then there is the nuclear melt down or three mile island and Chernobyl effects: where we are left to sweat because someone won't pay to clear out the remaining few bits of contamination.
I think Thatcher started all of this dash for nuclear (as part of her need to slaughter the mining community of the UK) and Blair in his own sweet way has made it worse. Brown seems to be following Blair's line and simply marching forward to the tune of, "Nuclear is the only way, comrades".
In this case, I am at one with the tree hugging, sandal wearing, tank top toting environmentalists!!
For more information, take a look at this page from the Financial Times (you might need to be a subscriber to read all of it)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae288c60-e32f-11dc-803f-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 and follow the links for even more background information, especially this article from 30th January 2008:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cd59698-cec0-11dc-877a-000077b07658.html.
Duncan Williamson
More on Percentages: the BBC and British Gas
knowsome of you think I am bilious ... just sent this to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 ...more on percentages.
Dear Sirs,
I think your business and other reporters need to return to the classroom to brush up on their arithmetic: percentage calculations in particular.
Since British Gas reported profits yesterday of £571 million, up from £95 million a year ago, you have persistently reported, including in an interview just five minutes ago, that this is a 500% increase. Of course it is not a 500% increase, it is a four fold increase. The key word here is increase: the change. You are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the nature of a rate of change.
I even heard during yesterday that BG had earned a six fold increase in profits: again, a misrepresentation of the change.
Best wishes
Duncan Williamson
Halifax, England
Accountants
Did you know that there are three types of accountant: those who can count and those who can't?
Just found that in an article in the Economist from last August.
Duncan Williamson
Norther Rock: the stupids have already been born
One of the key aspects of the Norther Rock Bank settlement seems to be that the bank will be managed at arm's length: this is a well known concept and is even enshrined in just about every internantional financial reporting standard in its definition of fair value. So, even accountants know what it means.
No real surprise then that in the debates on Norther Rock, the stupid MPs decided to ask what would the government do if ... they then posed a whole series of nonsense, in context, questions that flew in the face of the arm's length concept. They get on my nerves these people. However, if the government does interfere, as I sure it will within around a year or so, these people will be able to crow about how prophetic they were.
My point is that the Northern Rock debate this week has been littered with many of the irrelevant questions and few of the relevant ones.
Duncan Williamson
Northern Rock
In the very short term, follow the Northern Rock story: today and for the rest of this week.Already George Osborne of the Conservative party has been on the Today programme (before 8 am today) on BBC Radio 4 to make a real ass of himself as he deomonstrated his utter lack of understanding of the situation.
Then watch how the business works or fails over the next year or two. NR is being nationalised and then run at arm's length. I doubt very much that the arm's length aspect will stick because politicians and civil servants and absolutely incapable of letting managers manage.Even Margaret Thatcher with her Cabinet of vegetables was a grossly interfering old bat.
Duncan Williamson
China ... anti political
This is a simulcast: on the duncanwil and oxbow blogs.
We all knew it was going to come but we weren’t sure how it would start. So Steven Spielberg started it by resigning from the post of artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics. He’s entitled to his opinion of course and on the one hand we have to admire him for taking a stance in the way he has. However, I wonder if this was just a stunt: I wonder if he took the job knowing that he would later use it for political purposes. If this is the case, then shame on Spielberg.
I have no particular candle to burn for any country in this respect but I detested the anti Soviet boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Then there was a stupid British politician on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme this week who said that it is impossible to divorce politics from sport. It’s people like her who cause far more problems than they solve. By being unable to divorce sport and politics in her own mind, this woman is clearly saying that anything goes. Moreover, if anyone thinks of any link between China and anything they want to talk about, then the Olympics are fair game to be included in any potential action. This is the sort of mentality that ruined much of the Moscow Olympics and other Olympiads.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you may fundamentally disagree with what I have said. Consider the honest, jobbing athletes, though. What about the young person who has been training for the last 4, 6, 8 and more years to be at the peak of their condition as they try to win an Olympic medal. These people make personal sacrifices, family and career sacrifices, to get to the Olympics. Do you really think that some poxy politician has the right to get in the way of that? I don’t.
Here’s a test for you: where is the Republic of Georgia? Could you pinpoint Georgia on a map without studying the index of an atlas for five minutes. Now, can you find China easily? Whatever you answers, here’s the reason I ask. In 2001 I unearthed a story in Georgia relating to the theft of money from pensioners across many parts of the country: thousands and thousands of pensioners were potentially involved. What happened was the nominees of the then President Shevardnadze whose job it was to hand out monthly pension payments would keep 50%of the pensions for themselves. Imagine someone stealing 50%of your income, let alone your pension. Would that be a serious matter for you? Would you want to take action to stop such thefts? I genuinely believe I was the only Westerner to know about this situation and I told my MP about it: he managed to achieve nothing for the poor pensioners of Georgia. I wrote to the Prime Minister, John Major and didn’t even get a reply. I wrote to the Foreign Office ... nothing. I wrote to Mary Robinson at the United Nations, Oxfam, Amnesty International and many organisations whose details I have now forgotten. I chased this story for a year or more and in the end the extent of my achievement was a copy of a letter from an EU Commissioner who said what I had found was terrible but don’t worry, the EU was watching Georgia.
So I failed the pensioners of Georgia despite my best efforts. My point here, though, is this. Substitute China for Georgia in the above story and what difference might it make? I think you know the answer. China is large and growing and an important country economically ... and politically. Ay, there’s the rub: China is a threat to other world powers and so we turn full circle to see why China MUST become a victim in the minds of Spielberg and that stupid British politician on Radio 4. Mia Farrow, a second rate actress from years ago, is also anti China and is attracting a lot of attention for some reason with her ill thought out campaigns.
China may be doing something iffy in Sudan but consider the following:
What iffy things are the following countries doing and what is Mia Farrow, Steven Spielberg and that stupid British politician doing about it?
The UK
The USA
France
Germany
Italy
Australia
Canada
Singapore
Brazil
Russia
Kazakhstan
You name any country you like and ask the same question.
Of course, two wrongs don’t make a right; so my point is, why are these narrow minded people being so selective in what they choose to make a stand on? The answer is, like my Georgian story, where they can extract most publicity for THEMSELVES.
DW
Lovely to see an enthsiast enthusing
Again from the New Scientist, I came across the mathematics of symmetry. Now, I am nothing of an expert or anything remotely resembling it but I downloaded a PDF file from
http://one-number.notlong.com and in there you will read an enthusiast enthusing about the properties of 23!: that;s 23 factorial.
Now we all know that 23 factorial means 23 * 22 * 21 * ... * 2 * 1 ... yes, I did know that much.
The spooky thing is that 23! = 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000
and you may care to check that it is 23 digits long. Apparently, 23 is the unique ODD number that has this property ... of having the same number of digits as the original integer. You can test that easily enough, for example:
3! = 3*2*1 = 6 ... NOPE
5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 ... NOPE
7! = 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 5,040 ... NOPE
25! = 362,880 ... NOPE
and so on.
When will you ever need to know this? Well, factorials feature in the mathematics of permutations and combinations; but the 23 ... 23 factoid is given free gratis by way of the enthusing of an enthusiast!
Duncan Williamson
Lovely to see an enthsiast enthusing
Again from the New Scientist, I came across the mathematics of symmetry. Now, I am nothing of an expert or anything remotely resembling it but I downloaded a PDF file from
http://one-number.notlong.com and in there you will read an enthusiast enthusing about the properties of 23!: that;s 23 factorial.
Now we all know that 23 factorial means 23 * 22 * 21 * ... * 2 * 1 ... yes, I did know that much.
The spooky thing is that 23! = 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000
and you may care to check that it is 23 digits long. Apparently, 23 is the unique ODD number that has this property ... of having the same number of digits as the original integer. You can test that easily enough, for example:
3! = 3*2*1 = 6 ... NOPE
5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 ... NOPE
7! = 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 5,040 ... NOPE
25! = 362,880 ... NOPE
and so on.
When will you ever need to know this? Well, factorials feature in the mathematics of permutations and combinations; but the 23 ... 23 factoid is given free gratis by way of the enthusing of an enthusiast!
Duncan Williamson
percentages
A while ago Chris posted here a piece on percentages in which he quoted a letter or advert from someone that suggested that they were giving houses away, or some such. All to do with the way that some ill educated person was using percentages.
Well, here's a similar one from this week's New Scientist magazine: someone received an email with the subject: Discount of 541% on Chateau d'Yquem. Now, how is that possible? Work it out from here:
the pre sale selling price was £29,750and thediscounted price was £4,640
What should the subject have said, then?
Duncan Williamson
