[ghosthost]

Morgan Freeman will play him in the movie

[PGR88]

Its only government regulation and desire for control that pushes centralization.

Power is a perfect example - the trend should be towards individuals being able to produce their own power, efficiently, cheaply and conveniently, without huge investment costs.

[Obadiah]

This is where I think power generation is headed in the next 50 years. I think in many areas of the country you will no longer see large or mega-sized power generation plants and large high voltage wires. Instead, I think you will see smaller community, neighborhood, or even home-sized power plants.

That’s why the idea of building all these super high capacity power lines all through developed areas makes little sense given where the technology is clearly headed.

[rjsimmon]

The turbine’s size, though remarkable, is not the issue. The fuel is. With the length of the fins reduced, the turbine can spool to much higher RPMs safer with less chance of destructive harmonic resonance. Were it to be made of titanium or ceramic, then it can achieve considerable internal temperatures and withstand the required pressures. BUT without the proper fuel source, one that is always available, the damned thing won’t run.

[Agnes Heep]

After the carbon dioxide passes through the turbine, it's cooled and then repressurized before returning for another pass.

How does it get repressurized?

Could a small one of these be used to air condition a house?

[bigbob]

“After the carbon dioxide passes through the turbine, it’s cooled”

Ruh-ro...that daggone gorebal warming again!

[camle]

sorry if i don’t get all wee-wee’d up over this. i’ve seen too many ‘miracle’ technology announcements that haven’t panned out. i’ll believe it when i see it

[Zeneta]

And then there’s this;

Bloom Energy

http://www.bloomenergy.com/

[Blood of Tyrants]

“After the carbon dioxide passes through the turbine, it’s cooled and then repressurized before returning for another pass. “

I fail to see how this as a positive return on energy because more energy will always be required to pressurize it than will be extracted from it.

[BitWielder1]

The energy still has to come from somewhere.
They're not going to get 10-33 Megawatts without a very large solar collection system or molten salt storage, big enough to completely offset the compact size of the turbine itself.
Efficiency is of course good but there is no magic here.

[PAR35]

A perpetual motion machine. (I suspect it will use a lot more energy than it generates. Perhaps it should be paired with a small (an acre or so) coal powered plant. )

[Oberon]

The supercrit CO2 is a turbine driving medium, not a power source.

So what’s the power source again?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“The key thing will come down to economics,” says Doug Hofer, the GE engineer in charge of the project.

What a quaint notion, Doug. You are probably in your 50s or 60s to believe such classical engineering-economics style thinking. No, the key thing is whether the white hegemonic power structure is smashed and brown people can take over to make sure men can use women's bathrooms and all microaggressions are dealt with severely.

[frithguild]

Adding more hours of operation just means having a larger or hotter reservoir of the molten salt, rather than adding additional arrays of giant batteries

LFTR: http://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.glerner.com/2012-what-is-a-lftr/

[aquila48]

The turbine might be compact, but what about the energy source? And all the associated plumbing, etc?