Reply To: Repowering the electric utility industry

[Joeviocoe]

Tim1 wrote: … I doubt that batteries will be used for peak demand periods. It would be cheaper to just use Focus Fusion devices intermittently.

Edit: Since the incremental cost of running a Focus Fusion device is rather low, it could be used to generate Hydrogen from water for use in industrial processes when not providing peaking power.

We don’t know the throttling costs of a FF device yet. It can be very complex and cumbersome to turn off the FF device and allow Decaborane to precipitate onto the beryllium electrodes, or costly to keep the device idling to prevent this.
So “intermittent” operation is not something that can be done without engineering for exactly that.

Using an electrical power source to produce Hydrogen for “industrial processes” is horribly inefficient. It ‘may’ make sense for a FF device that is located AT THE LOCATION of a factory that needs hydrogen so badly and does not already get hydrogen as a waste byproduct already.

Otherwise, compression, storage, transport, etc.. of hydrogen is extremely wasteful and would result in Focus Fusion losing its economic advantage.

Fewer conversions is best…. keep FF power as electricity and store excess in batteries.