Reply To: extracting energy out off the plasma soup

[nakile]

As much as I agree, economics has its way of making the best idea not happen all the time…

To narrow down and rephrase my original post, is there a good economic case for putting the waste heat to work with residential and commercial applications? Will it be worth building a hydronic pipe network along side a new electric grid (we’re due for a new one soon no matter what) or will economics favor just building a beefy power grid that can do everything with electricity for these customers and the reactor waste heat simply gets thrown out?

Again, if the reactor will be hitting higher efficiencies in decades time, I think the answer is most likely no. Even 38% is borderline. In both scenarios I’m imagining a decentralized municipal level system, that’s how these units would work best. But how will the infrastructure itself come together? I guess the major factor/question here is what is the theoretical maximum direct conversion efficiency and how likely is it to be reached?