Grid Decentralization???

Interesting article. (By the way, once again our tax dollars at work --
subsidizing patents for non-profits that keep people from freely using
the ideas they helped pay to invent.)

As I continue think through what TangoMan has written, such as about
Niagara Mohawk and sunk grid costs, it becomes obvious the grid is
heading for an economic failure at some point, given continued dropping
PV costs -- and it will be a failure driven by twin self-sustaining cost
counter-spirals of rising grid useage costs and lowered local
alternatives costs.

Here is my reasoning: As Tangoman showed in the Niagara Mohawk case (and
others, Denmark, etc.), the less people who use the grid for primary
power, the more electricity will cost when it is used. As people
disconnect from the grid (or just use it for cheap backup), the cost per
kWh for the remaining users for grid electricity will go up (since grid
maintenance is currently about half or more of delivered electricity
costs, and must be distributed across all grid users). Thus, when facing
rising grid electricity useage costs, people will get ever more
financial incentive to disconnect from the grid. Grid maintenance costs
will remain high since remaining users randomly distributed and so
requiring the whole grid remain functional). This is the first
self-sustaining cost spiral -- ever upward costs for grid power as less
people use it.

But, as we have sen, alternatives like PV or thermionic generators are
also decreasing in costs, driven by mass asoption in various niche roles
along with greater understandign of basic material science. Even if PV
were to remain expensive (unlikely), at some point people will at least
get just the incentive to go to propane cogeneration plus energy
efficency, since presumably the cost of delivery of Propane per kWh is
less than maintaining a grid with less and less users.

So, as soon as home electric power from
PV(90%)+SomeFormOfDailyStorage+PropaneCogeneration(10%) is cheaper than
about $0.05 / kWh (assuming baseline power is free and derived from
perfect SSPS), the grid will fail economically in a few years afterward,
as everyone will move to generating their own local power purely for
economic reasons, and that shift drives home power production costs for
capital and maintenance ever lower through greater mass production,
better design, and more familiarity. This is the second self-sustaining
cost spiral -- ever downward costs for local alternatives as more people
use them.

Note, wwith SSPS, since the grid also will likely be expanded at
substantial capital and maintenance cost to cover home heating with
electric by everyone, and thus just the grid portion of electric bills
might go up to $0.10/kWh anyway. So, this migration to local PV might
even happen at a $0.10/kWh price point whether or not cheap SSPS ever is
introduced, since of course that is around the price point now. So,
we'll see this sort of economic ending of the grid happen with or
without SSPS. Note that for suitable sites, wind energy costs are
already below $0.10 per kWh and so may drive some people disconnecting
from the grid (or using it for backup), thus driving up everyone elses
prices, and making wind systems in more marginal areas mroe cost
effective, as well as making home PV more competetive etc.

So in short, unless we see radically lowered grid installation and
maintenance costs that keep pace with exponentially dropping PV costs,
the grid will soon be history (I give it twenty years!)

Note: grid maintenance costs in highly dense urban areas will presumably
be lower than in suburban area, so I would predict the grid will first
go away in rural areas, then suburban ones, and then the grid will hold
out the longest in cities. Since the cost per square foot in cities is
so high, it might remain more cost or resource effective to generate
power outside the city in suburban PV installations (or rectennas :-)
and keep roof area in cities for recreation and food producing gardens.
(Still, energy efficiency and PV in windows etc. will reduce cities
external power needs by 50-90%).

In any case, I think if people here are going to make the case for SSPS,
at least start making it for SSPS in a gridless world. This dialogue
with TangoMan has shown me at least that the grid is one of the major
Achilles' heels for SSPS. Even if SSPS power was to be environmentally
benign by itself, and was to be effectively free of operational or
capital interest costs (though realistically Gerry O'Neill cited $0.02 /
kWh in _The High Frontier_), any dependancy on the grid will torpedo any
SSPS project on economic grounds in the long term. So, for people
pushing SSPS, the bets bet is gridless activities, like producing liquid
fuels or beaming power close to factories or to other big consumers
(like space launch facilities, or perhaps nearer to places with very
dense and presumably cheaper to maintain grids like cities).

Still, even gridless operation of SSPS ignores social issue of
centralization of economic and political power in the SSPS cartel,
especially such as if SSPS produces all the world's carbon sequestered
liquid fuels in remote areas, like beaming all the power to the Middle
East (since they are already the hub of a liquid fuel distribution
network). :-)

--Paul Fernhout