Reply To: Competition from the Thorium reactor

[Rematog]

Brian H wrote:

Lots of items there that don’t quite mesh with available info.

1) the units are conceived as factory pre-fab, trucked in and erected. The man-hours for installation etc. estimate is way high, probably at least an order of magnitude.
2) capacitors are off-the-shelf, and $50,000 seems high
3) profit for the installed unit seems questionable, as the revenue projections use licensing as pretty much the sole profit source.
4) Normal grid interfaces are not necessarily a good model for connection costs, as distributed generation would argue against large “brown field” clusters as the dominant model. Many, particularly in industrial zones, would likely be primarily dedicated to local consumption. Further, standardized interfaces would certainly be developed and implemented at far less than these projected costs for the volumes of installations projected.
5) Offices & site buildings are overstated, IMO; the projection I saw was for one office housing one or two technicians per 5 or 10 generation sites, remotely monitored.
6) Land costs are not part of any estimate process for the units. They would vary from $0 to a few hundred thousand perhaps, for the garage-sized building and interconnect facility, and the control site is a “shared” cost between 5 or 10, and might even be an office rented in a local commercial building.

Etc.

Brian,

Thank you for responding by my post. I enjoy getting intelligent, thought out feedback.

Pre-Fab: I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear that the first section of the estimate is for the factory fab. of the power block. I did this as a “reality check” of the number given by Focus Fusion. I intentionally kept cost what I considered very low. So, to me, this showed their number was reasonable as a very low end estimate.

Capacitors: are indeed off the shelf. An I have no data other the capacitance needed, nor did I try pricing by contacting vendors. I used a number that seemed reasonable for something that big, operating at 3-4 Kv. If you know what a real price would be, please post it and I’ll use it.

Profit: The Overhead and Profit figure I put in ($100,000K/module) was for the company factory fabricating the modules, not Focus Fusion. The royalty is part of the overhead, which also includes cost of owning and operating a factory, insurance, taxes, management and engineering salaries, etc. I used roughly a 25% mark-up for the O&P figure. If someone has real life business experience with the O&P for large, high tech skid mounted equipment in series production, please post and I’ll use it.

Distributed Generation: I agree that distributed generation was advantages that will drive the industry in that direction in the long run. But, in my posts, I am considering more the initial phase of deployment, say the first decade or two. In that time frame, due to the fact of this being a nuclear technology (fusion is a nuclear reaction), I firmly believe that the NRC, local regulation, and especially local opinion as expressed by zoning, permits and intervention, would prohibit it’s use in urban areas. Second, several economic factors (ease of maintenance, operations/oversight, security and economies of scale in construction) would make having the power block located on larger sites attractive. Third, the organizations doing the installation would be, again in my opinion, utilities, whether investor owned or governmental, and this will have advantage to those organizations of allowing reuse of facilitates. Think of this as being the business version of “realpolitik”.

Office, buildings, Control room: Again, my estimate is based on a large site with a lot of modules. I did divide the cost by the number of modules, so per unit, it is not that high. The control room I’m discussing has a DCS system (Distributed Control System, an industrial automation system to accept analog, discreet (on/off) and digital field signals, process them, make control outputs, again analog, discreet and digital. These systems provide user interfaces via multiple touch screen stations) which can monitor and control a large, complex operation. Other more mundane, but necessary, things also fall under this and site improvements, such as roads, outdoor lighting, water and sewer, etc. While I would not say my estimates are dead on, I would argue that based on my experience, they represent the low end of the cost range.

Land: You say they are not part of a cost estimate, then go one to say this is because they are extremely variable. I agree they are variable, but that does not, to me, mean they should be ignored in a greenfield cost estimate. If you disagree with my estimated value, fine, lets discuss why. One of the advantages I mention for brownfield development is the (arguable) assumption that the land on the existing site is already paid for and thus “free”. And re-use of brownfields does reduce environmental impact, worthwhile in itself.

In general, remember that I am using the standard of a heavy industrial installation with a 30 year design life, meeting OSHA, NEC, NEMA, ASME, ASCE, HEI, NFP and other codes and standards (including the insurance carrier’s) that all industrial facilities in the United States must meet. Yes, this stuff makes it more expensive, but all existing power technologies, and the prices your comparing Focus Fusion to, meet these requirements. It would be unfair, and un-realist, to make a comparison to Focus Fusion built to light commercial standards, not meeting codes. I.e. you could not expect to put a reactor in a lightly built trailer and sting cables from the ceiling, then park it in a neighborhood.

And, thinking about it, if the NRC gets involved with design, QA/QC requirements, etc., expect the cost to go up something like ten fold. (Modules costing $3-5 million ea, at factory, uninstalled).