Solar Thermal. This isn't Your Grandma's Solar Energy! II

We are not up to the stage of building a commercial reactor. We need to know how to build them first. That takes time and lots of resources, some of which are only in Government control. It would be many years before the first watt for domestic consumption is produced using thorium reactors.

 

But the first such reactor can be build within two or three years, considering how much is known. But only if it becomes a high priority project.

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)
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It does not require government funding if the economic prospects are promising. The belief that it does is pure poppycock. The private sector has far more money to invest than the US government can afford and the private sector accomplishes far more for far less money than anything the government does.

 

What are the projected capital investment costs for such a reactor? Any idea?

 

For a first-of-a-kind demonstration reactor, where everything must be designed essentially from scratch, Kirk Sorensen of Flibe Energy has estimated $100 million. Obviously that's a ballpark figure.

 

You seem to be confusing government taking tax dollars and building a reactor with government standards and regulation. The former is a losing proposition because government is inept when it comes to running a business.

The government's only job is to provide for the safety and security of The People and they can do that quite well with sensible regulation.

 

Very easily within the capability of private investors to fund. Of course for a prospectus they would also have to include the proposal for a fully functioning cost effective reactor. Let us assume that the total capital investment would be $10 billion. That is still easily within the capability of private investors to capitalize the enterprise. All they have to do is create the prospectus and people will invest. As I mentioned it's something I might very well get into at the IPO stage if the numbers look good. As long as it can be shown that money will be made people will invest.

 

The bolded bit is the bit I have an issue with. For a private to build a plant with no guarantee that it will work and no expertise on how to build it is a huge risk. Then if they tell the people who want a power plant what they were planning to do and the risks then the answer could be "let us look at another company. We need a power plant in x years."

Risks mean the thing will not work or be able to be built, or they cannot get the required raw materials and heaps of other things.

 

There is nothing really stopping a private company doing so - However do keep in mind that we are talking about a LOT of research -= the kind that takes mega millions and only Governments and blue chip industries have that kind of money and of those two only governments have been proven to actually put the money up front

 

And when was the last time you saw a 10 billion dollar risky enterprise being funded by private enterprise?

 

In investigating thorium reactors I found that the science is basically complete and all that is left is the issue of system design. This could be an engineering challenge but having worked in engineering for decades on advanced military programs the design of the systems is not all that difficult. It just costs money and private enterprise has the money not just for a development reactor but for a fully operational reactor. As I noted I would be interested in investing as long as the prospectus could show a good return on investment. It's all about the prospectus which needs to address the issues of engineering design costs, construction costs, availability of the fuel, timeline for development and eventually bringing the "product" to market.

Where we see "government" investment is in projects where there is no promise of a return on investment. Large scale solar thermal is a perfect example of that because the projected costs to the consumer are 2 1/2 to 3 times more than coal or conventional nuclear power plants. Large scale solar thermal investments simply don't meet the criteria necessary for private enterprise to invest in it.

I also find examples where private industry has made significant private investments in design and development of high technology systems. Northorp (now Northrop-Grumman) privately invested $1.2 billion in the F-5G/F-20 Tigershark program and did so based upon a DoD request to develop a defensive figher aircraft for Taiwan. Unfortunately for Northrop when the development was complete the US government prohibited the sale of the aircraft to Taiwan so basically Northrop took it in the shorts.

Personally I don't see much risk related to the design of a thorium power plant or in securing the fuel. The greatest risk IMO relates to politically motivated regulation that would prevent it from becoming a reality. The investors could take it in the shorts if the US government did the samething that it did with the F-5G/F20 Tigershark program.

We see the same thing today related to the current 21st Century state-of-the-art fission nuclear power plants. The designs are extremely safe with a huge reduction in radioactive waste but the building of these new reactors has been prevented for solely political and not technological reasons.

 

I beg to differ:
Investing in a clean energy future

and more at the link.

 

The amount of regulation and red tape in nuclear industry is staggering, and this issue is much more pronounced for completely new reactors. Thats one of the reasons thorium is not already being used.

I believe another reason is that fossil fuels and conventional nuclear cover our needs quite well for now, and there is no hype as with renewables. With no immediate need or pressure, nothing is done despite all the potential advantages.

 

The same is true in Germany today.

<<< Mod Edit: Off Topic >>>
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Some of the links didn't work for me but this appears to a private investment by Google and not government funding or subsidies based upon the links I could open. I'm not sure if Google had a profit motive in making these investments but certainly the installation of solar on new homes can be recouped and a profit made by incorporating these costs/profits in the sales price of the home. Residential use of solar technology is cost effective and I highly recommend it starting with passive solar and insulation that adds little cost and that can reduce energy needs to almost nothing. Supplemental active systems such as solar thermal water heating, solar thermal space heating and even limited PV electricaly generation can also be highly cost effective at the residential level.

Large scale PV electrical power generation faces the same cost problems as solar thermal (ST) even though the cost of PV has actually been lowered to the point it appears to be slightly less expensive than ST electrical power generation. Both still remain 2-3 times more expensive than coal (even with clean coal technology incorporated) or nuclear power production.

Let is review the general cost problems with alternative large scale "clean energy as addressed in this AEI Outlook report:

http://www.aei.org/outlook/energy-a...and-solar-power-part-i-uncooperative-reality/

These "high costs for land, capital, transmission, and back-up capacity" are not free just because the government is paying for them. Instead of being on an electric bill they are paid for with taxes that are withheld from our paychecks every payday. The exception is if private enterprise chooses to invest without regard to a return on investment. I have no problem with these private investments as they don't cost the rest of us in society which is a burden imposed when the government provides grants or subsidies.

When we read a statement like, "These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW -- that&#8217;s equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes!" we must realize that this is true at high noon but at midnite that 88 MW typically comes from a back-up coal fire powerplant so the entire 88 MW PV powerplant comes with the additional cost of the coal fired power plant that typically isn't included in the cost of the PV power plant. It basically costs us double for the capital investment and operation and maitenance costs for the same 88 MW capacity regardless of what type of back-up generator is used.

Solar and wind energy have a place but they fail when it comes to a cost/benefit analysis related to large scale electirical production.

 

I'm not sure of when the 17 nuclear reactors in Germany were built but based upon the three nuclear power incidents they've had, all of which occurred in the 1980's, I'm guessing that they were built in the 1970's and perhaps even into the 1980's. These nuclear power plants are not using 21st Century nuclear technology. Germany has also decidede to phase out these nuclear power plants which is not a bad idea because they are "old" technology that doesn't have the inherent safeguards provided with current technology. Germany is an energy dependent nation and will probably secure the supplemental power it needs from counties like France that are still using nuclear reactors. Germany has also proposed using alternative power production but this will add to the very high costs of energy that already exist in Europe. From a cost/benefit perspective I believe Germany is making a mistake but it's the German People that will suffer because of it, not Americans.

Ultimately Germany can do whatever it wants to do but I don't believe Americans can afford to pay two or three times more every month for electricity.

 

I tried responding once before but the software ate my post.
Fixed link:http://www.google.com/green/collaborations/investments.html

I have to again emphasize, that "cost" is more than just how much money we pay for electricity. "Cost" also includes the cost of environmental damage and cost to our health. Coal is very "costly" when you add in these "costs".

Despite the ranting of the naysayers, the goal of using solar and wind has never been to supplant FFs, but to provide supplemental energy as our energy needs go up.

And I am surprised you are pro-nuclear. Considering the government's role in funding the research for the feasibility and construction of nuclear power plants, why would you deny the solar and wind industry the availability of government funds?

 

Well see...they know there's a place for green energy. It's just that old Cinderella thing. Once you let her put on finery and join her ugly stepsisters, however shadowed and brief, at the royal ball, it's hard to get the Prince to look at the ugly girls anymore.

Once investors reap the profits of free sunshine augmenting from 1/3 to 7/8ths of the years energy, negating having to buy expensive processed fuels...well...the cancers of Chernobyl and Fukushima [arriving soon at a Tokyo neighborhood near you] and of the black lungs of the coal miners are suddenly not so attractive anymore.

THAT'S the reason Cessna, Shiva etc. have a beef with different ways of creating steam, and different ways of generating electricity.