05-27-2023, 05:26 PM
(05-23-2023, 01:25 PM)ac3r Wrote: It sucks, but I think you need to keep in mind just how much 4'500'000'000 is...and it would no doubt go well over that.
That's not something that you can say with certainty.
First, something that came out of the Council discussoons on Stage 2 ION on Wednesday was that Stage 1 had an initial budget of $818M and $12M or 1.5% was contingency., so $806M. The Problems with Bombardier and disagreements with GrandLinq on some things added $50M to the budget, bring it up to $868M, or $806M + $62M contingency. That's 7.7% contingency or over budget, whichever way you want to put it.
Second, what also came out of that Wednesday meeting was that the cost estimation was done with only an accuracy of -25% to +50%, a very wide range, and that the numbers publicised re cost were that maximum +50% number. The further you get from the centre of that estimate the less likely the estimate is.
That means the real likely cost is not $2.72B in 2022$, but rather $272B / 150% = $1.81B, far closer to and much more in line with the previous estimates of $1.4B to $1.6B from a handful of years ago.
Further, that means that the $1B of estimated inflation to 2033, which was assumed to be ~3.2%, is really only $670M for a total of $2.48B.
In turn, that means the 20% contingency is not $744M, but really only $496M, bring it to $2.98B in 2033$, not $4.76B.
But, since we now know what do to, what not to do, and how to do it, lesson learned and all that, and we need less than 8% contingency last time, do we really need and would we even use a 20% contingency? 10% woudl bring it down to $2.72B in 2033 dollars.
So why is the Council only harping that top unlikely cost of $4.76B? It's almost like they are deliberately trying to kill the project by doing that.