The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I read the Constitution and it doesn't seem to require a quorum. With that in mind, I request that the Legislature withdraws this amendment and reproposes it with language that eliminates this loophole. While it is convenient in this case, allowing the Legislature to propose Constitutional amendments with the assent of just a small portion of its membership does not sit well with me.

[Zanas]

Alright, so could the Emperor hint me to the exact part of the text of our Constitution that needs to be amended to include a provision for a quorum to pass a constitutional amendment ? Do you think this provision should just be a majority of registered Legislators, or higher than that a qualified majority of registered ? In less words : 3 out of 5, or 4 out of 5 ? I'm thinking 3 out of 5 should be enough, since it still has to be ratified by a 2/3 vote of the citizens.

Oh and is there a quorum on that vote by the citizens ? Need there be one ?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It should be possible to introduce a proper attendance requirement just by eliminating the parenthetical portion "(excluding abstentions)" from Article VI, Section 3. I'd be fine with making it a simple majority of the Legislature to propose an amendment, for the reason you stated; that it still has to pass a vote by the electorate.

     There is no quorum for the citizen vote, and I would advise against requiring one. The Northeast did that once and found themselves virtually unable to pass an amendment at all. While we have plenty of activity now and could certainly manage it, we may come to regret such a decision if things change down the road.

[Dereich]

I feel like it's time to end this nuclear issue, so here's an amendment to the bill with which I'm sure we can all agree:

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[Adam Griffin]

As a concerned citizen, I would like to offer the following amendment to the amendment to the bill, after coming to consensus with Legislator Dereich in private:

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[Donerail]

I fully endorse this development.

[Dereich]

Ok, ok. Now that April Fools is done its time to get back to business. I know this is hoping against hope, but would any of our Labor or Mustafinite legislators be willing to vote for Sjoyce's proposed amendment?

[Donerail]

Ok, ok. Now that April Fools is done its time to get back to business. I know this is hoping against hope, but would any of our Labor or Mustafinite legislators be willing to vote for Sjoyce's proposed amendment?

My point with the amendment is keeping the same amount of costs to us while doubling the number of reactors and reducing our expenditures on each individual reactor - it would also have us cover specifically reactors that have already been proposed so we're not breaking new ground and doing new surveys and finding new sites and such.

[Zanas]

Okay, so I wanted to wait a few days to see if our cases would be ruled by either our Southern judicial branch or the Scotroa, and Dibble made a clever ruling, but the Scotroa isn't ruling as of yet, so I guess we can go on with our work.

I won't be voting for the building of even the very first nuclear power plant, but I can bring this to a vote. Not sure I can bring the 22 reactor amendment by Sjoyce to the floor though, since he's not currently a Legislator. This ought to be proposed here or in the Legislation introduction thread by a Legislator (here would be best). Otherwise, I'll bring the latest (serious) one by Dereich with 11 reactors.

Regarding constitutional amendment, since we voted one but PiT said we should retract it and make a better one, I'm thinking maybe we can still keep the one we voted as it is, and make another one to include a provision for a quorum, and those two could be voted upon in the same voting booth. I think this has been seen in the past and doesn't pose a great problem, no ?

I'll draft something quickly so we can move on. So, Dereich, are you maintaining your 11 reactor proposal or switching to 22 like Sjoyce proposed ?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I'm fine with voting on two separate amendments, since they'll both go straight into the text of the document.

[Dereich]

Zanas I will NOT be taking on Sjoyce's amendment and in the spirit of compromise will be amending my amendment as follows:

Amendment

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I also want to state definitively that this is not the end all be all of IDS energy policy. This is just a first step. I know our Labor members have been planning an overhaul and look forward to seeing it.

[Adam Griffin]

At the request of a member of our legislature, would you redo the cost estimate for our nuclear bill? The number of nuclear plants has been reduced to 5.

IDS Clean Power Act - (5) 1200-MW water-pressurized reactors

Construction Costs: $11.941 billion
5-Year Operational Costs*: $4.209 billion

Total 5-Year Cost: $16.150 billion

*(Fuel, Maintenance, Staff, Decommissioning; $0.02/kWh)

[Zanas]

I appreciate Legislator Dereich's will to compromise on this subject. As we have said and done all we could on the subject, I guess, I am now bringing this to a final vote, regardless of the ongoing trials and Dibble-ations.

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This is certainly not the last we heard about energy policy. Great challenges open before us that we are going to have to address with other bills in the future.

The vote on the following bill is opened for 48 hours starting now :

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Please vote :
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Cabbage

[Hash]

I wanted to expose my views on this hot topic before the vote, but I'm lazy and never got around to it. But better late than never.

I don't particularly like nuclear energy, and I certainly don't see it as the answer to energy problems. There have been admittedly few nuclear disasters compared to the number of nuclear power plants/reactors, but the two largest disasters (Chernobyl and Fukushima) have been gigantic disasters which will affect the local community for hundreds of years, which have ruined thousands of lives and which have affected the health of countless surrounding communities/countries.

And even when there aren't nuclear disasters on such a scale, nuclear waste is a serious issue which I don't feel has been taken seriously enough by the proponents of this bill here. There have been cases of improperly processed nuclear waste from Sellafield in England turning up in fishing villages in northern Norway, and around both the Cap de la Hague in Normandy and Sellafield, you have had above average numbers of leukemia cases. I am happy to have contributed to the Nuclear Waste Reprocessing Act when I was in the Senate, and I trust that current federal laws/regulations are appropriate for the issue.

But while I don't particularly like nuclear energy, I can't say I really subscribe entirely to the anti-nuclear movement. Sure, nuclear power isn't great and I would much rather we turn to wind power/solar energy/hydroelectricity etc; but when compared to coal and oil/fossil fuels, nuclear energy - while not 100% 'clean' and far from safe - is probably preferable. From my understanding, the South is not well suited for other renewable sources (wind power, see: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/United_States_Wind_Resources_and_Transmission_Lines_map.jpg; solar etc).

This is a tough choice. Nuclear energy is, on balance, a step up from coal and oil; despite all its obvious drawbacks and in the absence of a suitable environment for intensive production of renewable energies. I still fully support the efforts of those who want to introduce a bill providing for more investments in non-nuclear renewable energy. Nuclear power CAN NOT be the only solution to the energy crisis or the solution to dirty energy sources.

The bill in its current form is much better than its two previous forms. I am still a bit uneasy about the costs, even if 20% can be covered by the feds. Do we have the budget for such a project, even over the long-term? Would spending so much on nuclear energy preclude us from appropriating funds for research and hopefully development of renewable energies? I would have preferred for the text of the bill to include a detailed cost breakdown, as the GM provided.

[JerryArkansas]

To address your concerns, We will give these plants the most update safety.  We will also in the future try and provide other energy sources for the south.

I vote Aye on the bill.

[Dereich]

I'll try to address your concerns paragraph by paragraph.

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It is true that nuclear disasters, when they happen, cause massive hardship. But they just plain don't happen in normal circumstances. Chernobyl was a shoddily built plant with employees who didn't know how to operate it, while the earthquake that caused Fukishima was one of the greatest natural disasters in Japanese history. Even in that case, several nuclear plants were impacted, but in all the rest all risk was quickly taken care of. And no other nuclear accident has come close to those, because without extremely exceptional circumstances, they won't happen. The IDS is also especially unlikely to have such an act of god like the Japanese earthquake and even in that event, we've had strict standards for such an incident since 2007, as seen here https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Southeast_Nuclear_Energy_Initiative. Its still a cause for concern, but with appropriate safety standards such an incident is something that needs not happen.

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I agree that not enough attention was given to nuclear waste, and I apologize for that. I've never really read up on the intricacies of the issue and just assumed that reprocessing and whatever is current practice would suffice. I know part of Sjoyce's proposal involves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_floor_disposal, but if it continues to be a concern I'd be happy to introduce a bill for creating a permanent and safe storage space for IDS nuclear waste.

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This I think is a key point. The IDS is pretty terrible for wind power, good hydroelectric sources are rare and cause significant headaches with ecosystem damage and other problems that come from damming up a river, and solar is neither ideal for the south nor economically efficient enough to handle a major conversion from coal. I also agree that this is only a first step in a replacing more polluted energy with cleaner sources, but it is clearly the best first step. A real long term plan would have to focus on diversification based around renewable resources similar to the one Velasco brought up earlier in the thread, and I agree that such a plan is something we need and I know one is being worked on by our Labor legislators. But to do away with fossil fuel type plants in one swoop is not plausible and this bill is an important intermediary step.

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Especially over the long term this bill should be well within budget, and it should in no way preclude any action on renewable R&D.


As for the bill itself I give a very firm AYE

[Velasco]

I also estimate the efforts of the Legislator to reach a compromise solution. The current redaction is certainly better, or at least more acceptable, than the initial.

I coincide approximately between 90% and100 % with exposed by the Legislator Hashemite.

Nevertheless, I have some nuances to do. The most fervent supporters of the nuclear fission power are in the habit of raising a false dichotomy between this source and the combustion of fossil fuels, tending to place nuclear power as the only 'clean' alternative. Nuclear power does not emit carbon monoxide, but the nuclear fission generates radioactive waste: let's stress once again that is not a clean energy. I believe that the dispositions for the waste processing are an advance with regard to the usual practice in previous decades of throwing happily the cans into the Ocean. Still, the nuclear waste will continue being a potential risk in the decades and centuries to come.

I admit that I'm reluctant to build new plants but, far away from raising a closed and irrational opposition, I stated that it's necessary a diversification of the energetic sources, in the hope that progressively we could replace the energy production with renewable sources.  I'm aware that the region lacks of a great potential for wind power, with the exception of Texas. We have enough sun hours, but I know the habitual objections about the current costs. Nevertheless costs can diminish in the medium and long terms with further development and research. Also, it's possible to find imaginative solutions. See how Germany dominates in wind and solar power via democratizing energy. Germans don't live in a tropical paradise, but half of their renewable power is owned by particulars.

http://www.ilsr.org/germany-solar-power-wins/

I'll go into this later on and, by the way, I'll try to avoid the usual demagoguery of electoral campaigns. In any case, if I feel compelled to reply some deceits, I'll use my office to make statements As for the current bill, I'd like to see some estimation of the costs before casting my vote.

The IDS is also especially unlikely to have such an act of god like the Japanese earthquake and even in that event, we've had strict standards for such an incident since 2007, as seen here https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Southeast_Nuclear_Energy_Initiative. Its still a cause for concern, but with appropriate safety standards such an incident is something that needs not happen.

The South is far from the Ring of Fire, but we are not inmune to other natural catastrophes like hurricanes and floods. See the map linked below that shows the location of nuclear facilities in relation with the risk of floods. Climate change will increase these events in the future.

http://www.scienceprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NuclearFloodsFinal_Highres.png

[Velasco]

At the request of a member of our legislature, would you redo the cost estimate for our nuclear bill? The number of nuclear plants has been reduced to 5.

IDS Clean Power Act - (5) 1200-MW water-pressurized reactors

Construction Costs: $11.941 billion
5-Year Operational Costs*: $4.209 billion

Total 5-Year Cost: $16.150 billion

*(Fuel, Maintenance, Staff, Decommissioning; $0.02/kWh)

Well, I see that Adam estimates an average cost of $ 2,388 billion per plant, raising to $ 3.23 billion with operational costs. So I move the following question to PiT. If we undertake this investment, does budgetary availability exist to approach other energetic projects in the next years?

[Dereich]

At the request of a member of our legislature, would you redo the cost estimate for our nuclear bill? The number of nuclear plants has been reduced to 5.

IDS Clean Power Act - (5) 1200-MW water-pressurized reactors

Construction Costs: $11.941 billion
5-Year Operational Costs*: $4.209 billion

Total 5-Year Cost: $16.150 billion

*(Fuel, Maintenance, Staff, Decommissioning; $0.02/kWh)

Well, I see that Adam estimates an average cost of $ 2,388 billion per plant, raising to $ 3.23 billion with operational costs. So I move the following question to PiT. If we undertake this investment, does budgetary availability exist to approach other energetic projects in the next years?

PiT said earlier that the cost of 11 plants over 5 years would be manageable; now with only 5 being built what is left remaining coupled with rising tax revenues from the recovering economy should allow more flexibility in future plans.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     If we pass this bill, we'll be left with something in the area of $4 billion to prioritize where we please this year. It's hard to say what that will look like in the future, since we have little control over how our budget fluctuates.


     EDIT: Since we were talking about packaging another amendment along with Zanas's amendment and then wound up voting on this, should I just go ahead and open the booth on the first amendment now?

[Velasco]

Thanks. So if we pass this bill and the federal government finances the 20% of the costs, we'll have to undertake an investment of $ 9.553 billion in construction costs with an additional amount of $ 3.367 billion in the following five years.

It's a huge sum and it would consume a very important part of our budget. I understand that we might need financing for other projects in the future and not only for the ones related with the energy production. This investment might suppose an eventual increase of the taxes, if the income is not sufficient to undertake projects that could be considered to be necessary for the progress of this region.

I have another question, do you have any idea of where it is more necessary to construct these plants, if we approve this bill?

[Zanas]

     EDIT: Since we were talking about packaging another amendment along with Zanas's amendment and then wound up voting on this, should I just go ahead and open the booth on the first amendment now?

No, not yet. I'll write a provision for a quorum shortly, we'll pass it (hopefully), and we'll include both of them in a same booth.

After that, and probably under the next administration, we'll go under a long process of rewriting the whole constitution.


As for the Nuclear Power bill, as much as I'd like to appear as the moderate hero that compromises across the aisle, this one is definitely one where I cannot do that.  My concerns, views and proposals can be read here.

So I'm having to vote No on this one.

[LastVoter]

I suggest a 75/25 split of funding for solar/nuclear projects.

[Dereich]

I suggest a 75/25 split of funding for solar/nuclear projects.

I'm pretty sure Zanas would rather eat his own grandmother then allow even one new nuclear plant to be built in the IDS.

[Velasco]

Yes, that split between solar and nuclear projects might have been another compromise solution. Unluckily, compromise seems to be difficult to achieve in the present circumstances, due to the polarization that SJoyce's pronuclear campaign has generated. I think Seatown's proposal stresses in a certain way another flaw that I pointed in the beginning of this debate: focusing the energy policies only in the nuclear question. I always advocated to have a global perspective on this issue.

Said this, I'm inclined to vote no on this bill for two reasons: first, I share Zana's concerns and views, at least in a majority; second, budgetary considerations.

Still I estimate the attempt of coming to a commitment on the part of the federalist legislators, but this issue has been tackled badly from the beginning. So we have a tie at the moment.