Posted on 02/22/2015 7:30:43 AM PST by ckilmer
at 3 cents/kWh the ThorCon electricity will be cheaper than gas.
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That’s 1/2-1/3 the cost of cheapest coal or natural gas.
The rate here in the South is 11 cents/KWH.
The rate here in the South is 11 cents/KWH.
Sounds great.
This tech has great potential. Keep the government the hell away from it.
Don’t confuse the electricity cost with the added cost of transport.
My current Kwh cost (at this moment - 10 AM) is 3.1 cents.
http://www.powersmartpricing.org/prices/
My transportation cost is separate.
Thorium reactors are a GREAT concept, but the problem is, the environazis and liberals, who are immune to logic, business acumen, common sense, and, ironically enough, REAL environmentalism, will fight them every single inch of the way.
Just because the word “reactor” is in the description and the key ingredient ends with “ium”.
Emotionalism trumps all for them, and they have power now.
What will likely happen is the Chinese or the Russians will make huge strides in them and deploy them, and we will buy from them out of shame.
The only reason coal is so expensive is due to excessive government regulation.
In fact, we probably could have had this 30 years ago if not for DOE’s politically-driven meddling. And that bitch Jane Fonda and her stupid movie...
Don't worry. Government safety oversight will help move that cost to a more reasonable $6/KWhr, no problem.
Yep, you’re right on the money; “reactor” and “ium” and hang another shingle around their neck worded “hysterical”, in addition to the hat and t-shirt worded “wind” and “solar”.
You're right.
There are plans for “neighborhood sized” plants that you bury in the ground and forget them, until you dig it up to refuel. The neighborhood can have their own wiring, in that case. No “transportation costs” needed ... :-) ...
The transport costs are the infrastructure costs (electricity lines, poles, etc.), which include labor for maintenance. The cost of electricity on the spot market is effectively what those prices at my link above are (but I pay a small fee ($2.50/month) for “day ahead” pricing, which is kept profit neutral, because I don’t want to be predicting the costs myself, everyday). There is probably a small fee for line loss, depending on how far away the electricity is that bought this way.
Another company called Flibe is said to be working around the current regulatory restraints by designing thorium reactors for US military bases for which no regulator restraints apply.
The US DOE is currently funding a Canadian thorium reactor company which also is not under current US regulatory constraints.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC doesn’t have any rules yet that apply to the molton salt designs. All of their regulations were designed for light water reactors.
I think there will be some movement in this area in the next couple years.
Whether its fast enough to get the 4-5 US companies involved in 4th generation msr tech into first place in the molten salt reactor race remains to be seen.
In fact, we probably could have had this 30 years ago if not for DOE’s politically-driven meddling. And that bitch Jane Fonda and her stupid movie...
..................
There were a bunch of really bad mistakes that were made in the 1970’s.
The abandonment of thorium reactors was one. The abandonment of desalination membrane research was another. The FDA drive to lower fat in the American diet in favor of sugar was a third.
Which is why those countries will continue to grow and we will watch their standards of living go up and ours stagnate or even decrease slightly.
Martingale is designing ThorCon in the US while targeting its first installations in forward-looking countries that support technology-neutral nuclear regulations and see the benefits of the license-by-test process.
...
More than likely, Martingale is looking for non-thinking suckers to give them money.
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