Reply To: turn heat into electricity

[Tulse]

Just for comparison, it appears that the average price for residential power in the US in 2011 was around 11 cents/kwh, and the cost in most other countries is far higher. These are “plant-to-outlet” costs that consumers pay, and not just generating costs — I don’t know if things like transmission system capital and operating costs are included in the FF estimate, or what percentage of the final consumer price those costs are. It seems like FF-generated electricity will indeed be much cheaper than current power, but “much” may be more like “tens of percent”, and not “orders of magnitude”. Given that, I doubt that we’ll see a lot of new power-hungry technologies enabled by FF, as I doubt that FF will make power cheap enough.

I think it’s also important to note, however, that FF is likely to have far fewer externalities associated with it (e.g., health effects of smokestack emissions, land consumption for plant siting, wear and tear on rail system from coal transportation, costs of fighting wars to protect oil-rich nations, etc .etc. etc.) — these are not factored into the current price of electricity. I think personally that it is in eliminating those externalities that FF really shines.