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Salemicus comments on Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Considering options for reducing environmental impact of energy, it seems it would be both more economical and more environmentally sound for a large group of people to get together and invest in a nuclear power plant than for each of them to individually install solar panels on their roofs. Taking the USA as an example, the typical home consumes about 15,000 kWh/year and an average home solar installation providing this power would have a total cost of $30,000, or about $12,000 after city rebates and tax credits. It would provide power for about 20 years without extensive maintenance. If a million people got together and paid $5000 each, however, they could fund a full-size nuclear power plant and get the same amount of power for 60 years (they would actually get about 18,000 kWh/year, and the excess capacity could be sold off to fund power plant maintenance).
If a million people paid $5,000 each, no power plant gets built because the government won't allow it.
Definitely. I'm not proposing that as an actual realistic plan. It's just interesting to compare cost vs. utility (both in terms of power generated and impact on the environment) of the different energy sources. The only real way to put the plan into action would be government subsidies on nuclear power plants.
A million people wouldn't pay $5000 each without a coordination mechanism.
Really though? My intution is that democratic governments are very sensitive to issues that lots of people care about, particularly if they show that they care about them by paying real money.
For comparison, the National Rifle Association has 5 million members, and a revenue of $256 million (so ~$50 per member), and is considered to have a big influence in politics. Google's online petition against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) gathered 7 million signatures ($0 per signer), and the act failed. This "build your own powerplant" movement would be similarly sized.