Solar Thermal – Ausra Sold! – More Discussion

More on my coversation with John Hugo on solar thermal, who writes:

Craig: I agree, could not have said it better re: nukes.

Re: the capital intensity of solar thermal, I don’t have a cost estimate on the power block from them and turbine procurement appears to be a problem according to them. But the cost of the mirrors etc. is $99 million for 50 MW pls the power block costs. This compares to $4/watt for PV, or $200 million.

Their system also allows for a gas assist that can run after the sun goes down or during low sun periods. That can add another 25% to capacity and which has the fuel costs of gas, but that’s the same as other gas systems in place now. Better than coal or nukes?

To which I replied:

Dr. Mills, Ausra’s founder, declined to talk (to me, at least) about the cost per Watt, even though I fairly well grilled him on the subject. Perhaps he was just being coy, but according to what he said, the price of steel is incredibly important in making this determination, and that this fluctuates greatly.

Personally, here is what I suspect. An extremely important aspect to keep in mind is that, unlike say wind, the efficiencies of solar thermal are improving every month. As you’ll see in my book’s chapter on the subject (scheduled to be published in March), there are four essentially different technologies here. Dr. Mills declined to say too much about exactly what he’s doing, but it was clear that he was pretty excited by it. The only hint he gave me was that it had to do with bringing a high-temperature (thus high-efficiency, per the principles of thermodynamics) solution to a technology that had previously been thought of as low-temperature.

I’m quite confident that Dr. Mills and his colleagues will be continue to be extremely active in the business; his passion for it is obviously sincere. And I, for one, believe he’s barking up the right tree in terms of a true and comprehensive solution for the world’s energy needs.