Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Rematog]

Brian H wrote: Those cost comparisons aren’t in the same universe as the discrepancy between FF and current sources. It’s no longer a matter of a few 10s of percentage points. It’s around an order of magnitude. I think most of the sharpie fiddling would be burned away in that environment. Call me an idealist. :gulp:

Brian,
You seem to be neglecting my last statement regarding PURPA. The “avoid cost” if FF becomes commercial, would be the cost of new FF modules…. So an independent generator wouldn’t have any advantage under PURPA. In fact, an independent generator would have several likely disadvantages compared to the utility.

1) Cost of capital. A large utility generally has an investment grade bond rating. So they can borrow money cheaper then a small start-up company. People invest in start-up companies hoping for a high rate of return.

2) Physical infrastructure. The utility will likely own land (on which the old plants sit) that has good transmission access, a source of water (for cooling system make-up), roads, are graded and fenced and have office and maintenance buildings. These sites almost always have rail access, which would make shipping equipment easier and cheaper.

3) Human Resources. The utility already has management, engineering, accounting, etc. staff in place, and these are already being covered under the rates charged to customers.

One another subject. as previously stated, large power consumers, such as industry, would likely be second phase deployers, perhaps in a few cases, even first phase.

And, FF could, no, would, provide process heat, not just power. This would be of great value, as most process heat is currently generated burning natural gas, oil, or in very large facilities, coal. The process heat market represents a large fraction of the total energy consumption in the US and rest of developed world. One co-advantage of this on-site generation, would be freeing transmission systems of this load, freeing it up for almost certain increase in residential load.

Remember, if FF power is relatively cheap, home heating as well as cooling would turn to electric power. Either heat pumps or, with low enough power costs, simple resistive heating, would replace natural gas or fuel oil for home heating. And, quite simply, with power becoming cheaper, and perceived as no longer having a great environmental cost, people would not work nearly as hard to conserve power. Leave the lights on, FF power is “too cheap to meter”……