PrepTest 120

Incorrect. If the building and maintenance costs are higher for fusion plants, that would decrease the savings that come from cheaper fuel, resolving the apparent discrepancy.

Incorrect. If regulations on coal/oil plants are less costly than those that would be on fusion plants, then there's another identified cost that would lower the expected savings.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Bizarro Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Cold fusion has much lower fuel costs than other power plants, but switching everything to it would only save about 25% on average.

Answer Anticipation:
As with all Paradox questions, let's start by clearly identifying the paradox. Here, fuel costs for fusion reactors would be "far cheaper" than coal or oil. This might lead you to expect that switching over to fusion plants from coal/oil plants would result in "far cheaper" electric bills, but they'd actually go down by only 25%.

We need to explain why the savings are so small when the fuel costs are so much cheaper in fusion plants. To do so, we should look for answers that bring up other costs associated with cold fusion plants that could drive the relative cost up despite the much lower fuel costs.

Answer Explanation:
Whether or not the electric companies would build the plants doesn't address why the expected savings are relatively low compared to the drop in fuel prices, so this answer doesn't resolve the apparent discrepancy, and it is therefore the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
Whenever a stimulus goes from a specific to a general, always think about other factors. Here, the stimulus jumped from a cost in generating electricity to the overall cost/price of it. That ignores other potential factors in determining overall cost, and the answers largely brought those up.

Incorrect. If fuel costs account for only a small portion of the overall electric bill, then substantial savings there wouldn't be expected to lead to much lower electric bills.

Incorrect. This answer establishes a cost outside of fuel costs that contribute to electric bills, and it states that it wouldn't go down as the price of the fuel goes down. Therefore, this answer explains why the savings on electric bills is expected to be lower than the savings in fuel costs.