Reply To: Pitching to Arnold

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

Seems I’m paying 9.3 cents/kwh, making your numbers verry conservative, Brian. But even at 50k$/GWh, doubling the new capacity every year triples the installed capacity every year. YEE HAW!

Another thought is that only the late adopters will be left “holding the bag” of stranded assets. With that kind of snowball effect, the early adopters could make a solid case to their Utilities Commissions to use the windfall to amortize ‘assets’ across 5 years instead of 30. Then the floor could drop out of the pricing without hurting investors.

Yes, we’d want to recycle as much of the buildings and transmission system as practical.

Yeah; here we pay 6.5¢, California/LA rates are all over the place, starting at ~11¢ going up to 25¢; Europe is in the 15¢ to 30¢ range, etc.

But my point is that the money isn’t “in hand” to install FF unless the rates are kept high. Perhaps a compromise at around $20/GWh would be good, enough to pay off existing FF plant in one year and fully fund another set. That, of course, is unheard-of speed. One-year amortization or prepaid is not the usual!
Don’t forget the ability to add one or more GW/yr. 😉 The sheer audacity may turn out to be the strongest selling point.