Critical Error: Book 3 of the Leaving Earth series Read online

  'Wise, on all counts. Yes, I think we should check it out. But I have another idea too… How about we sponsor a direct prize, ourselves. Arrange a tour of the Tech Centre. Meet the crew. Look at all our cool blinking lights. You know the thing.'

  'Not bad, mate. Yeah. I reckon we could do that. Let me chat to Steve Branch about it, and…'

  'He's on government, now,' said Grum.

  'Board of Education is close enough, and we'd have to get it approved through them anyway.' Stew waved the consideration away.

  'True! OK. Make it so!'

  'Aye, captain.'

  'Cool. What's the other news?'

  'The next thing is getting the programmes for fourth and fifth generation nuclear power stations under-way, properly. What's the status with the Nevada state government?'

  'Stonewall on that front.' He was not sure he should tell Stew about the emails he had seen. Not yet, at any rate. There was nothing actually there. Not in words. Just… 'There aren't any nuclear power stations in Nevada at the moment, you know. And even if we did start those builds based on the current designs, assuming they worked first time, we still wouldn't be in a position to properly put them into production for at least a decade.'

  'I know, but we can barter that energy against buying it in from out-of-state, now.'

  Grum shook his head. 'Nope. Climate commitments preclude that, for the time being. Nevada would have to negotiate for specifically renewable energy sources coming in. The tide is changing on that front, but for now, it's a no-go.'

  'That put UMBRA in jeopardy?'

  'Yes. Which is why we are looking to form partnerships in other states which have active nuclear energy programmes in the public and private sectors. We should be able to get a few of those off the ground. It might even get us quicker results.'

  'But loses us the tech advantage.'

  'On fission, yes, but the game isn't really about fission for us. We can still get those damned things built, then get them where they should be.'

  'Still not convinced on nuclear?'

  'Not entirely. I hope the fourth gen stuff works out as well as it could, but right now, I see an ever-dwindling finite resource of fissionable material being used in inefficient systems. Let alone the third gen work I've seen.'

  'Take another look at some of the designs and whitepapers our own fission department has come up with. They've worked some of the fourth generation benefits backwards into third gen. Three point five edition, you might say.'

  'You have got to be kidding me. Three point five edition was a horrible kludge'

  'Well, maybe we can consider those features a "pathfinder" generation…'

  'Get out, now.'

  'Not yet, boss. We haven't really finished with this, yet.'

  Grum leaned back in his chair and looked directly at Stew. 'We have to put everything into building the renewable power plants in Nevada. That is what you're going to tell me, right?'

  'Without the nuclear options, yes. Otherwise we cannot cover the shortfall. Even smaller programmes will help.'

  Grum's frustration boiled over, and he slammed his mug down on the desk, spilling some. Borne of the extra complications to expansion, the ever increasing backlog of orders, and the intense feeling that he was constantly swimming against a strong current just to stay keep the business where it was.

  'Is this what deja vu feels like? I thought we had been through this once. We expand and demand just balloons. Great in any other business! Just spend a couple of million on a new widget factory and bang! Your production ability is above demand!'

  He caught Stew's gaze, who was looking at him curiously. 'You do know…' began Stew, slowly, 'that if a company is in the kind of business where it would take "just" a couple of million to build out a new factory, that they would find it equally — or probably more — difficult to find that money than us, right?'

  Grum slumped back in his chair and washed his hands over his face. 'Damnit. Losing perspective, aren't I?'

  'Little bit.'

  'Sorry. Let's get on. Renewable power generation state-wide in Nevada or we don't get to turn on all the colliders at once. The board is reviewing the expenditure. I'll have to kick it upstairs.'

  'I'll see you for a beer after you do.'

  'I'll probably need one,' said Grum, then reached into a draw for some paper towel to mop up the coffee spill.

  Chapter 3

  GRUM summarised the situation in an email to Kelvin, and included his notion about having a tour of the Tech Centre as a prize for the winners of the science fair at RDA School. He got a meeting invite for right now back within a couple of minutes.

  Grum took the short walk to the CEO's office, quickly. The entrance to the outer office was directly off the main observation area where people on a tour would usually end up for the big meet and greet. As usual, he was waved straight through to Kelvin's inner sanctum where the CEO sat, beaming.

  'How do you know about my old school?'

  Ah, thought Grum, so that's the connection. 'I didn't know it was your old school, Kelvin, but Richard Dean Anderson was in a favourite old series of mine.'

  'Which one? It had to be one of the two big ones.'

  'Oh, yes. I actually liked them both.'

  'Me too! Although the latter one was a bit too far-fetched for me. Travelling to other planets through wormholes. Pfft. But a guy who can fix anything in any situation! Yes. That's my kind of guy!'

  Grum wondered if Kelvin was perhaps a little drunk. The exuberance was the same as normal, but the manner was far more open and relaxed. The mode of speech was more like you would use chatting down the pub. To Grum's mind the series about wormholes was less far-fetched than the other one, but then Grum was a practical scientist. Speculative science always got more leeway with him than hard science done wrongly. 'So, you like the idea of a tour?'

  'Absolutely! We can send the suggestion down to the school board this afternoon. I'm sure it'll be accepted.'

  I'll bet you are, thought Grum. 'On the other matter, then, Kelvin?'

  'Ah, yes. On that front, I don't have such good news. The board are insisting on justification for that kind of expenditure on something which the refuse to see any directly benefit from.'

  Refuse to see. 'I see. So it comes down to whether I can provide enough evidence that increasing production at Nevada, by the four colliders, will create sufficient profit to justify augmenting the state's overall power supply? Over what time-frame are they thinking?'

  'Essentially, yes. But I would take all possible views on profit, rather than just the purely monetary. I don't think they are quite that narrow minded. A positive public image is also good for the share price, you know. As to time-frame, I would suggest five, ten, and twenty year projections would be enough.'

  'Thank you, Kelvin. I'll get right on that!'

  'Great! Brilliant to see that you are taking the long-term view of the company future, too.'

  As Grum walked back to his office, he wondered about that comment, as well as Kelvin's general demeanour.

  Grum sent Stew a message as soon as he got back to his desk.

  Sorry, mate, no beer, yet. I need more than one brain to sort this out.

  Commercials, first, he thought. Best chance of showing profit over the terms they are talking about.

  'Did my afternoon of skulking in my office just go bang?' asked Stew, as he entered the office.

  'Yes. Sorry. They want justifications over five, ten, and twenty year periods. Monetary and anything else we can think of which can be put down in a hard evidence type fashion.'

  'So you're starting with the commercial sales?'

  'Seems like as good as any place to start.'

  'OK. Let's look at it.'

  'What are the top-line costs?'

  'Each new build of a current generation nuclear reactor would carry a nominal cost of around fifty billion dollars to run over twenty years. Including: build, maintenance, fuel, waste storage, and replacement.'

&nbs
p; 'I have a couple of notes, but first of all… Replacement?'

  'Yep. All recent estimates assume that new build reactors are considered commitment to nuclear for the long-term and so the cost of replacing it with either then same thing, or other power source must be considered part of the first twenty year cost.'

  'Doesn't seem exactly fair.'

  'No, but it is the standard.'

  'OK. Other notes… Fourth gen is more efficient than the older generations, and could well use spent fuel as part of its fuel. Waste storage costs would be lower in that case. Fifth gen isn't far along enough to cost out builds. It's pure R&D at this point.'

  'Very true, and we can factor those aspects in, but the current figures are third gen at best.'

  'Fine. What else?'

  'Well, we could just bin those costs, if we did not need them for the UMB programme. That is where those costs really belong, in R&D for Space Div. We have assumed them because of our Divisional name, but we don't actually need them to bring the new colliders online.'

  'I'll talk to Hank about that. So what are our costs, really? The costs of all the renewables plants, right?'

  'Yes. We would be looking at just over a billion dollars for each two hundred megawatts of output.'

  Grum paused before repeating Stew's words. 'A billion dollars, per two hundred megawatts? So we'd need six of those, right?'

  'Well, no. We'd need fourteen.'

  'Fourteen?'

  'For excess capacity buffers and to account for non-production time storage, yes.'

  'So fourteen billion dollars…'

  'Nearer fifteen, really.'

  'Fifteen billion dollars. Less than a third of just one reactor.'

  'Well, yes. Third gen. But definitely cheaper to build than any of the nuclear reactors, yes.'

  'So, why is this even a question?'

  'I'm guessing because it is in addition to the already enormous cost of the Facility it's going to power.'

  'Good point, well made. So that's the lifetime cost, right?'

  'Yes. Twenty five year lifetime cost, accounted for in the first twenty years to give the prospect of five years profitable running.'

  'OK. But I don't get to play with those profits, I have to account for the whole cost on my watch.'

  'Yes. Are you sure you couldn't to a twenty five year projection?'

  'I probably could. If it comes to a pinch, I might have to, but let's try and account for everything in the first twenty.'

  They worked on it for an hour. The commercial products would eventually make a positive margin over the cost of the expanded facility build and operations, but not with another fifteen billion dollars factored in.

  Hank's Division was a bust too, in terms of pure numbers. Core Power sold the generators and pods to Space for cost-price. No margin there. But Space had another thing going for it.

  'How many of Hank's big ticket programmes could continue to exist without AM power? And how many are waiting in the wings purely for a lack of capacity at Nevada?' asked Stew.

  'A veritable bastard of a good point. If memory serves, the only programme which is not reliant on AM tech is UMB. Everything else needs it in one way or another. I have no idea how many things he has backed up, though.'

  'Ask him? He'd probably invent a few just for good measure.'

  Grum smiled. That was probably true, Hank had been a friend to Core Power since Grum took over. It had on occasion been a strained friendship, but always there, nevertheless. 'I'll ask him. Or Vann. Or you could ask Amy, since she's over there as well, now.'

  'I could. Shall we see if we get different answers?' Stew laughed.

  'Why not? But let's wait until we're done here. It will be useful info, but I want to see if we can at least get the numbers to line up, first.'

  'Right you are boss.'

  The next line of attack was on the various governmental agencies: NASA, each of the service branches, and even the high-profile bases were all wanting a piece of this particular pie. In their case, it appealed to a certain kind of mind to be able to spend a trillion dollars on power sources which could last two hundred years, and be buried ten miles underground without ever stopping. So profit was available there. But every unit which was produced for those bodies would hamper the commercial production rate.

  Even if the current three collider's-worth of output were left unchanged, and the output from all four of the new colliders were put to the purpose of supplying the government, it did not quite cover it.

  It was Grum's turn to remember something they had missed: competitor demand. There were other commercial space companies — especially the space tourism companies — which were being held off with a big stick, so keen were they to have better emergency power sources. Definitely profit to be had there.

  They factored it in. Adding the various percentage output splits which they could model, the different sizes and classes of generators and pods for which they had market demand figures, and the types of client with their own mark-up. It was possible to get a positive figure. Barely. Over twenty years. But possible.

  That brought the discussion back to Stew's point about Space Division. Nevada's AM power output was not just about profit alone. It was an enabler of profit throughout USSMC. Taking a longer view than twenty years, you could certainly see the future becoming that much brighter because of the investment now.

  Chapter 4

  GRUM and Stew had managed to stop for a quick drink at the work's bar, but just the one.

  On his way home, Grum found that this had been a good thing. His taxi had barely left the block the bar was on before Grum got a message from Vann. It told him that Amy was taking Stew out for dinner that evening, so Grum and Vann would be looking after Clait for the night. It was a last minute, spur-of-the-moment thing, so Grum diverted his journey to stop at Stew and Amy's place. While Grum and Vann were still in the same apartment they had moved into after Nevada, Stew and Amy had tried the suburbs for a year, then given it up as a bad job. When they wanted to move back to the city, the old apartment had been let, so they found a town-house on the Upper West Side.

  He arrived just as Stew was getting out of his own ride. It struck Grum, then that this was a strange habit. All four of them worked in the same office, and yet they each, mostly, took separate journeys home. It would be trivial to all meet up at the bar or in the office building foyer, and do a two-stop trip. The ride home, though, had become a little bit of extra alone-time that he suspected the others found as precious as he did. He paused the journey and got out to follow Stew up to his front door.

  'Er, hi,' said Stew, when he turned to see Grum walking up the steps behind him. 'Again.'

  Grum just waved and motioned him on.

  Stew unlocked the door and they went in. Amy had apparently beaten them back to the house, as the child-minder was already getting her coat on to go. Amy proved this to be the case by walking in to the hallway holding a well-wrapped Clait, and beaming at Grum. Stew was looking a little flummoxed at this departure from routine.

  'Surrender unto me your first born son!' intoned Grum.

  Stew spun to face Grum. 'What did you just say?' Then poor Stew became even more perplexed as Amy did so. 'What?! Are we..? What?'

  'Do you need anything?' asked Amy, ignoring Stew.

  'Don't think so,' said Grum, thinking if they had enough of the standard supplies. 'Oh. Is he still into those fake cheese things?'

  'Yes. I'll grab a couple. Not too many, mind.'

  'No, ma'am.'

  Amy disappeared towards the kitchen and Grum, holding Clait, turned to regard his friend, mildly.

  Stew now appeared to be caught in between exasperation and mirth. 'We have a night off?'

  'Vann and Amy arranged it. What it entails, I have no idea. Nor any do I want!'

  'Perv.'

  'Hardly.'

  Amy reappeared with a few of Clait's currently favourite treats, and they parted. Grum headed back to the taxi which was waiting with mechani
cal patience by the kerb.

  Clait was well enough used to visiting Uncle Grum and Auntie Vann's that there was no issue, yet it was infrequent enough for him to stay over that it was akin to a treat in itself.

  The boys were little trouble when they were together. The occasional squabble over priority, but no major fallings-out. They had reached the best point in the evening, when both children were just tired enough to be playing quietly — separately, but within each other's space — but not tired enough to start grizzling. That would no doubt come later, normally it was just before bed time. Quite often because of bed time.

  However, just for the moment, Grum was enjoying watching them play not-quite-together, while keeping half an eye on the news.

  'Do you want more?'

  Vann's question broke into his peaceful contemplation, causing him to jump a little. 'Buh,' he said, with feeling. 'What? More?'

  Vann inclined her head briefly towards the boys. 'More.'

  'Oh. I hadn't really thought about it.' And he honestly had not.

  'Hence the question.' Vann smiled at him, but was clearly still expecting an answer.

  Grum gave the question some thought. He was not sure on the subject, and the phrasing of Vann's question told him that she was still undecided, although she had obviously given it more thought than he had. If Vann had wanted one thing or another, definitely, then she would have stated it: "I want more children" or "I don't want any more". 'I think, I hadn't really considered it because it still seems soon and new, as well as being the only way life could possibly be. It'll take more than a moment's thought, I'm afraid.'

  'I know. I wanted to talk about it, though. It really isn't that soon, you know. Ju is four, now. Arguably, in some circles, the ideal time to make an addition. But if we do decide to do this, we will have to prepare, so I am starting the discussion.'

  That was very true. Both about Ju's age and having to prepare. Vann had not had an easy pregnancy, to say the least, so another would take some planning. 'When they are like this, it doesn't seem hard, but there are times…'