I wrote:
> Anyway, in Table 1 you can compare the overnight capital costs per > kilowatt of capacity for various sources: > > Advanced natural gas, $2,095 > Nuclear, $5,530 > Onshore wind power, $2,213 > Photovoltaic, $4,183 > As I said, I think this is what it costs per kilowatt installed and ready to go. Here is a sanity check on those numbers, for PV. There is a lot of information on this, such as: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62558.pdf In 2013, the cost of manufacturing the PV itself was $0.67/W. That is $670/kW. In 2013, the cost of installing a PV array varied as shown on p. 8 and p. 9. Small, residential installations cost about $4.50/W (p. 9). Utility scale installations >100 kW cost about $3.52 per watt. So that's $4,500 to $3,520 per kilowatt, which is in line with "overnight capital cost" from the other document. As I said, an automobile engine costs about $10 per kilowatt of capacity, far less than any other energy source. Of course this excludes the cost of fuel! My point is that when the technology matures, a cold fusion generator will resemble an automobile engine more than it resembles something like a combined cycle electric power company generator, or a PV array installed in your house. It will be much smaller and more compact than the latter, with far greater power density. It will operate 24 hours a day, unlike a PV array, and it will automatically operate at whatever power level you need. The $10 per kilowatt cost excludes all the other stuff you need to actually generate electricity, such as a generator, wiring, installation and so on. But my point is that these things are cheap with cold fusion. They are far cheaper than the extra infrastructure you need to have the power company deliver electricity to your house. They are probably cheaper than the inverter you need with a PV array, and the electric power connection or battery you need for night-time electricity. The Chevrolet replacement engine for $1,460 produces 145 kW mechanical power. I suppose it is ~20% efficient, which means it is producing a huge amount of waste heat, around 580 kW. 145 kW mechanical power connected to a generator produces almost that much much electricity: 145 kW. That is way more than you need for an ordinary house. 20 to 40 kW would be plenty, especially with a co-generator. In short, an actual cold fusion heat supply will probably be much smaller, simpler and cheaper than the Chevrolet engine. Even when you add in the generator portion and the wiring installation it will still be orders of magnitude cheaper than today's conventional energy source. Various other sources I have seen also quote automobile engines (ICE) at about $10/kW, by the way. This cost has not changed much in the last 30 years. In other words, the technology was optimized for low costs long ago, as you would expect. Naturally, in this scenario the electric power company can also install cold fusion powered generators, and they can also rapidly lower the cost per kilowatt of capacity. But I do not think they can keep up. They still have to pay for a distribution network and all the costs associated with maintaining it, such as repairing the lines after storms. They still have to pay for large-scale one-of-a-kind megawatt and gigawatt-scale generators, rather than mass-market devices with an inherently low cost per unit. Small scale, inefficient mass market heat engines are inherently cheaper than large-scale heat engines per unit of output. To take another example of megawatt scale heat engine -- Few people would be able to afford a car if vehicle cost per kilowatt was in the same range as a railroad locomotive. A locomotive costs ~$5 million for ~3000 kW mechanical output, or ~$1,666/kW. Your 145 kW Chevrolet car (complete -- not just the engine) would cost $242,000 at that rate. This high cost is worth it to the railroad company because the fuel economy, duty cycle and longevity of a locomotive is far better than a family car. A cold fusion generator needs a higher duty cycle than a car, but fuel economy makes no difference, and longevity can be about the same as a car or HVAC equipment; i.e., 10 to 15 years. Comparing apples to apples, and automobiles to locomotives, a GMC Canyon low-end truck has a 181 HP engine (135 kW) and costs $21,000 mrsp. I suppose the 181 HP engine also costs about $1,500 retail. For the entire vehicle the cost comes to $155/kW. Still way below the cost of a locomotive, or a PV array, or a power company generator. A cold fusion home generator will do much less than a truck. It has fewer functions. It needs far less equipment -- no wheels, windows, sound system, etc. It is basically just a heat engine and a generator. So the cost will be closer to the cost of the heat engine by itself. The materials, tolerances, and fabrication equipment needed for a cold fusion cell should not be inherently more expensive than those needed for an automobile engine, once the technology matures. So there is no reason to think the cost will be much higher than $10/kW. - Jed
