Originally Posted by
Gunfighter
Production is only a portion of energy cost. Transmission and distribution make up the balance. By some estimates production may be as little as 1/2 to 1/3 of the end user cost for a kWh of electricity. If you are paying 12 cents per kWh, "free" fusion energy drops the user price to 6-9 cents per kWh.
WRT abandoning fossil fuels, there is good progress on the energy replacement front, but less progress on non energy uses. Plastics, steel, asphalt and lubricants are just a few products that come to mind. IMHO, the forced conversion to clean energy isn't purely about energy, it's about control. I don't like it.
Originally Posted by
SonicFlyer
I don't believe that. I could be wrong, but that just doesn't sound right. Also, fixed vs variable costs.
Transmission/distribution does cost more than generation today.
Some of that is artificial since the T/D is sort of a fixed cost, and some generation has shifted from power plants to on-site solar. So the T/D cost stays the same unless the infrastructure is slowly down-gauged over time. But then we consider EV's... unless most future EV's can be charged via on-site solar, we're actually going to need *more* T/D.
That's for current generation... fusion generation could probably be very local, as it's not hazardous and should scale down pretty small. So the transmission would probably not even be required, and local distribution could be adapted to local fusion generation, possibly a lot of it on-site. Plus on-site solar.
Large wind and solar farms might die on the vine, due to transmission costs. But that depends on the ultimate cost of fusion generation.... won't be free due to the need for gucci hardware, but should be infinitely scalable.