Word: costly
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Then it hit me. My 30-day pass for the subway expired on March 26. It would cost $81 to get a new one (and it will probably cost more than $100 in a couple of months thanks to rising mass-transit fares). After I added up a handful of things I knew I'd have to spend money on in the coming days - a birthday card for my niece, a co-pay for a doctor's visit - I simply didn't have the money...
...business model behind the new 3-D push is simple enough: the movies cost only a little more to make than flat films, while the ticket price is about 25% higher in 3-D theaters. (I sprang $15 to see My Bloody Valentine in Manhattan.) As a rabid movie watcher, I'm not immune to the pleasures 3-D can bring to certain genres. It's an advance in visual appeal similar to, but not greater than, Blu-ray. Which is to say, a difference in degree, not in kind. And with Blu-ray, you don't need the damn...
...Anyway, many of the new plants will never be built, and shouldn't be built, because of a second problem: Once again, nuclear power is turning out to be way more expensive than originally advertised. The plants are cheap to operate, but unbelievably costly to build; estimates for new plants have doubled and even tripled over the last year or two. One recent study priced new nuclear generation at 25-30 cents per kilowatt-hour; new wind power comes in around 7 cents, about the same as coal, and investments designed to reduce electricity consumption through more efficient appliances, lighting...
...costs spiraling out of control again? Yes, the global credit crunch has increased the cost of borrowing, and oil spikes have increased the costs of materials. But ironically-tragically, really-the main problem has been the 30-year hibernation of the nuclear construction industry, the legacy of the incompetence that led to TMI. The specialized workforce of nuclear engineers, welders and other reactor-builders has withered, which means higher labor costs and more delays. Our nuclear industrial base has atrophied as well; for example, the world's only steelworks capable of forging containment vessels is now a Japanese monopoly, forcing...
...barely grew the past 15 years: we should have a force of 4,000 officers, but we have only 1,600. We knew about police corruption but as a society did nothing to force the clean-up of our department. Now it's become extremely difficult to do. It cost the lives of 50 people in city government last year, including two police directors. (See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime...