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Re: Electricity costs



----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Knudsen" <shawn_knudsen@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: Electricity costs


In Western Japan we pay about $0.18/kWh

Very expensive.



All of these costs above $.10/kWh suggest to me a rip-off of consumers. My
class just finished a major project trying to design an energy distribution
system for the U.S. for the year 2100--assuming a totally electrical (at
least as primary) energy economy . The system uses mostly renewables (coal
& nuclear are used as well). The whole system had a capital cost (over the
100 years) of about $40 trillion ($40x10^12) which included debt service and
replacements of wind turbines, solar panels, and whole power plants that
would wear out during the 100 years. While this sounds HUGE, it works out
to only a little over $.01/kWh--since ramping up to a near 100% electrical
usage would take _at least_ the 100 years, the payback of the capital
expenses might be slower, so up the number to 2 or 3 cents/kWh. Operating
costs across the different technologies varies, but is never more than 3-5
cents/kWh based on industry and DOE figures. Allowing for a 100% markup for
profit, and the fact that current production facilities have already been
paid for, or were considerably less expensive than the components that went
into our plan, it would seem that anything over 10 cents/kWh is more profit
than costs.

Last year's project can be seen at:
<http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/ENERGY_PROJECT/ENERGY2100.htmhttp://www.
saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/ENERGY_PROJECT/ENERGY2100.htm>
This year's will be posted soon. [Remember this is a GenEd class.]

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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