Reply To: Focus fusion and transportation

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Somewhat deeper research led to buying a new county plat book/atlas yesterday and snagging Michigan’s energy stats from the EIA Saturday. This showed me that my initial siting (by map) would be only 15 miles from the major regional transmission line. On a trip to the big city yesterday I had a chance to scout that line for nearly 20 miles towards the next major city. (This is one of the cool things about living halfway between 4 major cities). The last leg gave me a chance to eyeball my first site choice, which is heavily wooded with some wetlands. EPA and tree-hugger lobbies would be an endless pain, which I’m trying to avoid. Secondary political ramifications would surely include FUD/NIMBY lobbies. I also found a tributary(?) transmission line only 7 miles from that site. This would have given us 3 wires to tee-splice into so the plant could send and receive grid power.

The jackpot was re-discovering a GM stamping plant with a 6 wire stretch of the transmission line already going over the edge of the parking lot and a local distribution transformer yard a block away. The last of GM’s maintenance people are scheduled to be re-assigned about the time Eric physically completes Baby. This site occupies nearly one square mile, and GM’s leaving has already put one heckuva lot of hurt on that city’s tax rolls. In Grand Rapids, this site is called GM Plant 1. Plant 2, on the north side, is another single-purchase tract with similar characteristics. While Plant 2 would definitely need to be bulldozed, Plant 1’s ceilings are at least 30 feet, high enough to double-stack FF modules using the existing cranes.

Here’s the module dimensions I sketched out yesterday, which are so roomy that they could probably end up being built at 2/3 of each dimension- i.e.- stacked 3 high:
Core swap/service apron: 20 feet.
Module: 40′ long, 20′ wide, 15′ high.
Services Alley: 20′ joins 2 stacks.

Here’s how it could look in a 1.3 million square foot building with 30 foot ceilings: (this building may actually be larger and higher- your mileage may vary)

50 modules wide=1,000 feet
16 modules arranged in 8 banks= 1,200 feet.
1,600 FF modules @ 5MW ea. =8GW (on the south side of town)

Combined with a new building on Plant 2’s site could maybe- just maybe- power the entire county, which is built around moderately heavy industry, machine builders, tool and die shops, etc. That concept should be fairly easy to sell politically. The luster of mothballing 28 coal-fired boilers just might turn this into the eco-status symbol needed to overcome the NIMBY/FUD, which is due to not knowing anything about FF’s inherent safety and other benefits.

Now, let’s assume that Eric’s testing and calibrating using only D-T fuel this year, and the pB-11 salsa delivers 3 or more verifications between August and November 2010, so the press release that rewrites energy history goes out during a major election cycle. Most of Michigan’s elected officials are up for re-election this year. I’m currently compiling an initial contact log for all candidates. What I intend to do is place as many as 1,000 calls to staffers on the first round, which will sort out who the Players are. The second round would hopefully be 1,000 calls or less. Both rounds will be selling the need to protect their political credibility by making Alternative Energy THE hot topic, and having a plan in place showing that they seen FF coming at least a year before the headlines and are ready to integrate it due to concerted public/private planning and and alignment of pooled resources.

Multiplying this strategy by 50 states could make Alternative Energy THE hot topic of the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races. Leveraging the existing political pressures should raise public awareness of FF’s benefits while short-circuiting the NIMBY/FUD votes (but not the rhetoric) with no budget and very little effort compared to a paid advertising PR blitz. As Spock said in the original series, “Chance favors the prepared mind”.

I’m not sure if there is any problem in stacking FF modules, but, e.g., a ‘cube’ of 10x10x10 units would be 1,000, generating 5GW, and would take up perhaps 100′ x 140′ on the ground, plus a certain allowance for internal access corridors and cooling ducting. Connectors and transformers, etc., would occupy more acreage. But it seems like a viable alternative to the side-by-side arrangements envisaged by Rematog.

Of course, co-opting existing plant space being mothballed, etc., has advantages, but if stacking is possible, then all sorts of options open up. Imagine an FF hi-rise or two on the outskirts of a medium-sized city, supplying all commercial, industrial, and residential power. It could even be load-sensitive, since stopping and restarting individual modules to make 5MW changes in output would (I assume) be relatively easy.

To speculate even more widely, embed banks of modules in the ground, in holes left by emptying out landfill sites (by reducing them to valuable elemental form and syngas with plasma-torching). Etc.