a.ashfield <[email protected]> wrote: Jones wrote. "If you live in a country with little coal, hydro, oil or > gas, 35 cents is about average." > > But we don't. (not to mention LENR) So why build the Brightsource plant > here? >
You are missing the point. We have to build these things here and now if we want to reduce the cost and play a future role in this technology. We cannot let China and other countries do all of R&D now and then later expect to be in this business. We cannot expect the first units to compete with established technology such as coal and wind. This is a risk. Solar thermal may not fall in price quickly enough. It may be left behind by PV or wind. Is it worth the risk? Google apparently thought it was for a while, then they changed their minds. Maybe they will change their minds back again. In any case, once the project was underway it made sense to complete it. When steamships were first developed in the 1830s and 40s people proposed using them in the transatlantic trade. The British government and other proposed methods of subsidizing them, for example, to carry mail. This was met with by protests from conservatives, who said -- quite correctly -- that steamships were more expensive than sail, and these subsidies interfered with free-market capitalism. These conservatives were missing the point. Steam had to be subsidized at first because it was new whereas sailing ship had been developed to a high degree of efficiency for hundreds of years, often with government subsidies, especially for warships. Steamships needed a boost up. It took 20 to 40 years (in various different markets), but eventually they became competitive. - Jed
