Where We Get Our Electric

Quote: Pacomartin

France is the poster child having only three basic designs for their 58 plants. As a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, they standardized. They approved a 10 year extension for all 34 of the basic design at once. France produces over 70% of its electric power from nuclear, by far the highest percentage in the world

France uses "breeder reactors" but I heard that there is some very good reason nobody else followed them much there.

Quote: AZDuffman

I got into them a few years back, had I done so in the mid 1990s when I started working

I met her in the 80's in an
antique mall I was in. Small
town MI, there was an old
power company building
across the street on the river.
It was a store front now. The
lady told me back in the 40's
it produced all the power for
the town and her husband was
the majority stockholder. He
eventually invested in hundreds
of power plants all over the
country and made millions.

Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste than nuclear energy.

If you look at the stats starting about 12:50, nuclear energy looks really safe compared to other sources of power.

@ 14:00, there is no evidence for increased deaths from radiation caused by Chernobyl.

Quote: Evenbob

I knew an old lady 40 years
ago who was a millionaire
from investing in utilities.
Her husband started buying
stock in power companies
in the 1930's and kept buying
more with the profits. It
snowballed and by the 80's
they were worth millions.
His theory was no matter the
economy we always need electric.

I am into utilities now, I like the dividends and stability, but I have to say if you can keep untouched a diversified investment in any area for 50 years you're going to look great. The XLU utilities etf only goes back to 1999, a bit over 20 years, but if you bought shares when it was new it'd have doubled going by today's price meanwhile earning very nice dividends*. Those dividends if reinvested would maybe double the return, let's say $10k could become $40k, which requires an overall return of about 7.2% for 20 years. That sounds fine but if you earned at that rate for 50 years you'd be looking at about $320k, so yes it is possible to be looking at millions without starting with much. I have long thought 40 years is the magic line, a lot of people hit that magic line with their homes and their excellently leveraged investment there. 

Quote: AZDuffman

I got into them a few years back, had I done so in the mid 1990s when I started working I would be better off than the ups and downs.  No kidding!  I called to move my IRA money and the guy on the other end said "let me look it up" then I asked the historical returns.  When he gave them he had a reaction of "why has nobody here (ie: his supervisors) noticed these returns?!"

I won't go so far as to say utilities would be "the secret", you do have to pay taxes on those dividends right off the bat, and an overall 7% can be achieved in other things. But as far as what that naive dude blurted out, yeah, where he worked you can bet the idea is to get investors into their pet funds where they have vested interest. 


*a share went from 29.50 to 60.28 today, and the market is still down somewhat

I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]

Quote: odiousgambit

I won't go so far as to say utilities would be "the secret", you do have to pay taxes on those dividends right off the bat, and an overall 7% can be achieved in other things. But as far as what that naive dude blurted out, yeah, where he worked you can bet the idea is to get investors into their pet funds where they have vested interest. 


*a share went from 29.50 to 60.28 today, and the market is still down somewhat

It is criminal that dividends are taxed as that means you are paying twice, but they are nice. Not "the secret" but the crashes of 2001 and 2008 combined destroyed my investments for the 2000s.

Quote: odiousgambit

I am into utilities now, I like the dividends and stability, but I have to say if you can keep untouched a diversified investment in any area for 50 years you're going to look great. The XLU utilities etf only goes back to 1999, a bit over 20 years, but if you bought shares when it was new it'd have doubled going by today's price meanwhile earning very nice dividends*

Remember, in the 30's there were
power plants everywhere. Thousands
of them. Every time you see a river
dam, there's an old power plant
attached to it. If you own stock in
one and it get's bought up by a
bigger company, you now have
stock in the new company. The
old lady said it was a full time
business keeping track of it all.