Over the years, I have come to realize that there exists more than an imponderable, but rather a quandary between products made for sale, and products made for use by the maker of them. What do I mean, anyway?
Designers and builders of consumer products, say, automobiles, do so with cost-effectiveness uppermost in importance: build the car as cheaply as possible, in order to maximize profit. Now, how about the equipment, the machinery, robots, punch-presses, finishing equipment, used in the plant which builds the car? If that equipment is purchased ready-made by the car-maker, it, too, was built to produce profit. In Engineering devices for resale, cutting-corners when possible ensures more return on the investment of building. So, occasionally, the car-maker's production equipment breaks down.
Now, what if......the car-maker employs his OWN builder of equipment for in-house use? They do not build the machines to sell them for profit; they build them to maximize life, with original building cost a secondary, rather than THE primary, consideration. Let's say, in doing calculations for a machine which rotates a turn-table, the designer finds that 3 Horsepower is theoretically needed to run the table. If he were SELLING that device, he would specify a 3 HP motor be used. If he wanted maximum longevity, he would spend a bit more, and use a 5 HP motor. Actually, we did this once, and the motor never broke down, the machine ran for years. Where am I going with this?
Let's build a Nuclear Power Plant! A consortium of Power Companies made just that conclusion, in Phoenix, AZ, about 1980. My wife and I lived there through the building of that plant, the Palo Verde Power Station, about 40 miles west of Phoenix proper. Guess what happened? The folks contracted with companies which build such plants. By then, those companies knew full-well how to "cut-corners", maximizing their own profit. One major player in this scheme was APS, Arizona Public Service. I told myself back then, big problems were ahead for them. At the very LEAST, APS and the others, should have had several Nuclear Engineers of their own, to oversee original design concepts and construction proposals. They did not. They were led into an absolute quagmire of problems, cost over-runs, resulting terrible public relations difficulties, as the public pretty much resented having that thing built 40 miles UPWIND of PHX! The actual figures have been glossed-over so many times, it is now impossible to get true information, but as I recall it then, original proposals budgeted for a bit under $2 Billion dollars. 5 or 6 years into construction, it was being rumored the thing would never be completed; $10 Billion had been spent. Amidst monumental difficulties, like giant coolant pumps which FAILED during testing, it looked like a catastrophe in the making. Those pumps, of unprecedented size, had been designed and built, of course, by an "experienced" builder, Japanese incidentally, which had never entered into design of such magnitude before, and, desiring PROFIT, built and supplied inadequate pumps. Just one of many boondoggles, the cost of which was most certain to be passed on to future customers of APS, buying electric power at higher cost than competitors', who had avoided getting in on the "build". The plant WAS finished, eventually, and went on-line. The moral is: If you want assurance of satisfactory results, use your own expertise, not that of others. Here is a little current P.R. blurb:
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona,[SUP][1][/SUP] in western Arizona, It is located about 45 miles (80 km) due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry except during the rainy season of the late summer.
The Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is the largest power plant in the United States by net generation.[SUP][2][/SUP] Its average electric power production is about 3.3 gigawatts (GW),[SUP][1][/SUP] and this power serves about four million people. The Arizona Public Service Company (APS) owns 29.1 percent of the station and it also operates this power plant. Its other major owners include the Salt River Project (17.5%), the El Paso Electric Company (15.8%), Southern California Edison (15.8%), PNM Resources (10.2%), the Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (5.7%).[SUP][3]
According to the Arizona Public Service Company, power generation operations to date at Palo Verde have offset the emission of almost 484 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of taking up to 84 million cars off the road for one year); more than 253,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide; and 618,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxide. The company noted, "If Palo Verde were to cease operation at the end of the original licence, replacement cost of natural gas generation - the least expensive alternative - would total $36 billion over the 20-year licence renewal period."[SUP][8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station
imp[/SUP][/SUP]
Designers and builders of consumer products, say, automobiles, do so with cost-effectiveness uppermost in importance: build the car as cheaply as possible, in order to maximize profit. Now, how about the equipment, the machinery, robots, punch-presses, finishing equipment, used in the plant which builds the car? If that equipment is purchased ready-made by the car-maker, it, too, was built to produce profit. In Engineering devices for resale, cutting-corners when possible ensures more return on the investment of building. So, occasionally, the car-maker's production equipment breaks down.
Now, what if......the car-maker employs his OWN builder of equipment for in-house use? They do not build the machines to sell them for profit; they build them to maximize life, with original building cost a secondary, rather than THE primary, consideration. Let's say, in doing calculations for a machine which rotates a turn-table, the designer finds that 3 Horsepower is theoretically needed to run the table. If he were SELLING that device, he would specify a 3 HP motor be used. If he wanted maximum longevity, he would spend a bit more, and use a 5 HP motor. Actually, we did this once, and the motor never broke down, the machine ran for years. Where am I going with this?
Let's build a Nuclear Power Plant! A consortium of Power Companies made just that conclusion, in Phoenix, AZ, about 1980. My wife and I lived there through the building of that plant, the Palo Verde Power Station, about 40 miles west of Phoenix proper. Guess what happened? The folks contracted with companies which build such plants. By then, those companies knew full-well how to "cut-corners", maximizing their own profit. One major player in this scheme was APS, Arizona Public Service. I told myself back then, big problems were ahead for them. At the very LEAST, APS and the others, should have had several Nuclear Engineers of their own, to oversee original design concepts and construction proposals. They did not. They were led into an absolute quagmire of problems, cost over-runs, resulting terrible public relations difficulties, as the public pretty much resented having that thing built 40 miles UPWIND of PHX! The actual figures have been glossed-over so many times, it is now impossible to get true information, but as I recall it then, original proposals budgeted for a bit under $2 Billion dollars. 5 or 6 years into construction, it was being rumored the thing would never be completed; $10 Billion had been spent. Amidst monumental difficulties, like giant coolant pumps which FAILED during testing, it looked like a catastrophe in the making. Those pumps, of unprecedented size, had been designed and built, of course, by an "experienced" builder, Japanese incidentally, which had never entered into design of such magnitude before, and, desiring PROFIT, built and supplied inadequate pumps. Just one of many boondoggles, the cost of which was most certain to be passed on to future customers of APS, buying electric power at higher cost than competitors', who had avoided getting in on the "build". The plant WAS finished, eventually, and went on-line. The moral is: If you want assurance of satisfactory results, use your own expertise, not that of others. Here is a little current P.R. blurb:
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona,[SUP][1][/SUP] in western Arizona, It is located about 45 miles (80 km) due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry except during the rainy season of the late summer.
The Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is the largest power plant in the United States by net generation.[SUP][2][/SUP] Its average electric power production is about 3.3 gigawatts (GW),[SUP][1][/SUP] and this power serves about four million people. The Arizona Public Service Company (APS) owns 29.1 percent of the station and it also operates this power plant. Its other major owners include the Salt River Project (17.5%), the El Paso Electric Company (15.8%), Southern California Edison (15.8%), PNM Resources (10.2%), the Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (5.7%).[SUP][3]
According to the Arizona Public Service Company, power generation operations to date at Palo Verde have offset the emission of almost 484 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of taking up to 84 million cars off the road for one year); more than 253,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide; and 618,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxide. The company noted, "If Palo Verde were to cease operation at the end of the original licence, replacement cost of natural gas generation - the least expensive alternative - would total $36 billion over the 20-year licence renewal period."[SUP][8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station
imp[/SUP][/SUP]