Jed,
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Chemical Engineer <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Concentrated Solar thermal has been around for 40 years and the costs >> still suck. >> > > Wind turbines were around for 1000 years but until the 1990s their costs > were much too high. It is not the length of time that counts; it is the > total R&D and scale of manufacturing. > It is not just the scale of manufacturing, not every product or system can be made economical by just scaling > The LUZ CSP plants in California would have been far cheaper per watt if > LUZ had been allowed to build them on the large scale they originally > proposed. The power company deliberately scaled them down to a size that > anyone could see would make them uneconomical. This drove LUZ out of > business, predictably. > History has a funny way of repeating itself > > > They are assembling 350,000 mirrors/heliostats at the job site. How >> effective do you think that is? >> > > If the technique can be improved, it will be, by the time time they > install millions of mirrors. Just allow competition and wait for capitalism > to work its magic. > > > How much more time do they need to be competitive? 50 years, 500 years, >> 5000 years? >> > > It makes no sense to measure this in years! You have to measure > capacity. My guess is that 10 GW of capacity would suffice, although I > would not know. I think ~10 GW actual (not nameplate) was enough to bring > wind power down to the cost of coal, factoring in externalties. > Right. Reminds me of the story where two guys went to Canada and bought Christams trees for $5/tree and drove to New York City and sold them for $5/tree. On the way back one said to the other that they did not make much money on that deal and the other said next time they should get a bigger truck! > > Asking how long it would take is unfair. This resembles the skeptical > attacks on cold fusion; i.e., > "it has been 23 years so why don't we have practical reactors?" Measured > in R&D dollars and manpower, it has been about 2 months, compared to plasma > fusion or "clean coal" research. It has been maybe 1 day compared to the > cost of wars fought for oil. > > - Jed > > Time does not wait, new technologies are being developed all the time. Results are what count, at least in business/capitalism - unless you have lots of government subsidies and loan guarantees.
