Beamed Power

>>
>>Yeah? And? These power stations aren't THAT expensive. Few tens of
>>millions or so. Maybe one hundred million.
>>
> And then some. They come in about $1 billion per gigawatt.

Much of what we pay for electricity is transmission costs. Many nuclear
stations can produce electrical power for as little as 1.8c/Kw. When you
factor in the cost of 10's of thousands of Km of transmission lines,
substations, transformers and local distribution networks, the cost per
kilowatt can go up by a factor of 3 or more. In effect, the generation
costs become almost irrelevant.

The South Africans are trying to get around this problem by designing a
small, modular pebble bed nuclear reactor. This would provide power to
local industries and cities without the heavy transmission infrastructure
that is required by larger nukes and coal burners.
It would be great if an SPS could function in a similar way. Small towns
and cities could be fed electric power by small football pitch sized
rectena. Even if the capital cost of the power increased by a factor of 2,
you could still come out ahead, due to the elimination of transmission
infrastructure.

Tony

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