It has been suggested on another list that they were convinced by the 2006 posthumous Science article by William Parkins mirrored by NET here:
"[Hot] Fusion Power: Will It Ever Come?" http://www.newenergytimes.com/Inthenews/2006/SCIENCE-FusionPower.htm Quote: "Scaling of the construction costs from the Bechtel estimates suggests a total plant cost on the order of $15 billion, or $15,000/kWe of plant rating. At a plant factor of 0.8 and total annual charges of 17% against the capital investment, these capital charges alone would contribute 36 cents to the cost of generating each kilowatt hour. This is far outside the competitive price range." $15/W is indeed a lot compared to the ~$2/W of a coal powered plant, or better now a Nanosolar PV plant ($2/W too, admittedly with a lower plant factor (~0.2?) than coal due to insolation not being constant, but with arguably much lower operating costs!) Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Blanton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 2:12 PM Subject: [Vo]:ITER Budget Slashed > By 93.3%: > > http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/07/557301.aspx > > Is Congress coming to their senses? > > Terry >
