Brian,

My bad on that, fusion/fission thing. I’ve corrected my original post.

You are right about transmission losses and cost of transmission facilities. I agree, focus fusion would lend itself to smaller facilities, and eventually, they could be close to urban areas.

And, what is not being stressed enough, is the possible use of focus fusion (both for power and heat) in industrial facilities. Again, it would start with the big, power intensive industries, aluminum, steel, paper, chemical etc. With time, both acceptance, and a work force skilled in operation would allow use in smaller industrial facilities. And, lower cost power would make new things possible. Heavy industrial users would get full benefit of the cost reductions, and this would eventually result in lower prices on the goods they make, benefiting everyone.

Depending on costs, electrolysis of water for hydrogen, with nitrogen taken from the air, would allow ammonia production without natural gas feed stocks (currently most common method). Not only can ammonia be used as a fertilizer, it may also be usable as a fuel for a fuel cell. This could be a possible means to move to a hydrogen economy.

I have worked for a very small (privately owned) facility. I’ve seen the short cuts they took. I’d be very uncomfortable about that kind of operation running a fission plant. I’m not saying all small operators would be bad…but some certainly would be. At least large companies, as they are run today, are VERY afraid of risk. They would be quite concerned with safety and avoiding accidents. The fact they have deep pockets means they don’t want to be in a situation of having a serious liability issue come up at plants they run. Again, certainly not saying they are perfect (they certainly are not). But this is why I’m not a believer in distributed use as realistic in the first phase of deployment (first 20 years). After that, we would have to see.