Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Rematog]

Brian,

I don’t understand your point. I’ve always maintained that utilities would be in the FIRST wave of deployment of FF. And, as I’ve said twice, the avoided cost most likely to be used by a state for PURPA purposes would be the cost of FF generated power.

I’ll say it again, the first mass deployment of FF modules would be utilities and wholesale generators repowering fossil fuel sites with FF. Nuclear FISSION sites would only be repowered when the TOTAL cost of purchase and operation of FF is less then the operating cost of the fission plants (the capital cost of the fission plant is a sunk cost).

Hard on heels of the utilities would be heavy industry for both power and heat.

Load growth, caused by decreased price, fuel switching (electric heat replacing natural gas and fuel oil for heat and hot water) in residential, commercial and light industrial plants would require additional FF generation stations, likely installed at substations and other “nodes” of the transmission system. As this progressed these new FF stations would get smaller and closer to loads (urban areas). But I continue to maintain that true distributed generation would be a long time coming and never completely replace the “last mile” of electrical transmission/distribution.

NOTE: This assumes the “current” technology status of FF modules. If FF modules could be shrunk to the side of an AC unit, packaged and made to run for years without service, ALWAYS fail safe and be (externally) radiation free, then that “mature” technology might make the idea of power distribution obsolete. But I’d guess it would be a generation before we see “Mr. Fusion”.

As an example of this type of historical improvement in technology, the internal combustion engine was over 75 years old before an engine could be expected to run 100,000 miles in a car without a major rebuild. I date the IC engine from 1876, and it was the 1950s before lubrication, design and materials improvements would allow the engine to not need routine “de-coking”, and valves, bearings etc. last the way we now take for granted.