Reply To: Nuplex.

[Lerner]

Thanks for the research, but I suspect this is a bit premature.

I also think you are underestimating the ratio of custom to mass produced items. I have read in many places the rule of thumb is at least 10 to 1, which would bring the price down to $33,000. To give an example from our current work, I tried to order a rectangular beryllium window, 2cm by 10 cm to view our experiment in x-rays (Be is very transparent to x-rays.). The quoted price was $7,000. After a bit of discussion with Maggie, their engineer, it became clear that the lofty price was because rectangles are custom windows, everyone uses circles. The price for a 10 cm diameter Be window (four times bigger window) was $2,000, mass produced (in quite low volume). So the price per square cm of viewing area was 14 times less.

If we are really going to be trying to meet the world’s energy needs with FF generators we will be producing something like a million a year, almost the scale of mass production of cars. So 10-1 may be conservative. An entire auto engine , which has a lot more stuff than just a cooling system, can be purchased for $3,000, so can be produced for less. Twenty-five such engines go for $75,000 and produce 5MW of heat energy, so clearly their cooling systems cost a good deal less. I don’t think that one system is going to cost more than 25 separate ones either—there are economies of scale as well. So, $100,000 is going to be far too much for mass produced cooling systems.