Thorium need not kill other technologies , it would fill in the spaces rather well , for instance I could see it being useful to power a complete city that currently has to bring its power in.
Some areas without sufficient energy resources to draw from would be a prime candidate for thorium nuclear power.
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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
I saw that too. Where I am we get up to 40% to 50% utilization.
Unfortunately most windy places don't meet the requirements to justify building a wind farm:
1 A windy site. Self explanatory.
2 Roads. Not just any roads. You have to be able to get tractor trailers to the site, modular cranes and wind turbine components such as 100 foot long blades.
3 Grid tie in point. Building transmission lines can double the cost of a wind project, plus the NIMY crowd can shut down a wind project by blocking the transmission lines. So the wind farm needs to be located near transmission lines that are not normally ran at capacity or can have their capacity expanded to accommodate the wind farms output with out having to expand right of way (problems due to NIMBY jerks).
4 Transmission losses. You have to put the wind farm near the market. Where I am they could easily build more wind turbines than the market can consume and more power than what the transmissions lines that interconnect markets can move. With this scenario it can actually be cheaper to build wind turbines that are closer to say Oklahoma city and have them produce less, as opposed to building a 1 billion dollar power line that will still see 20% or 30% losses.
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