Competitiveness costs

Another consideration of petroleum assessment analysts is whether, and to what degree, the vast resources of unconventional petroleum in the world can be captured by advances in petroleum production technologies, thereby converting them into conventional sources of petroleum. It is a simple fact that the ia-place resources of petroleum in tar sands, heavy oils, and oil shale can guarantee the future supply of petroleum for hundreds of years at the current rate of consumption, provided they can be produced at competitive costs. 

Not all the news is bad however. A large number of the existing nuclear plants produce electricity at very competitive costs. Competition in the electricity sector has led to a brisk market in the sale of existing nuclear plants. 

Leighty, W., Holloay, J., Merer, R., Somerday, B., Marchi, C.S., Keith, G., and White, D. Compressorless hydrogen transmission pipelines deliver large-scale stranded renewable energy at competitive cost, The 23rd World Gas Conference, Amsterdam, 2006. 

The relevant shares in the cost calculations change when microprocess technology approaches large-scale chemical production (U. Krtschil et al., unpublished data). Reactor fabrication at a competitive cost becomes crucial and is among the main cost drivers. The corresponding costs here go with the overall size of the microstructured reactor and with its number. 

This configuration has the potential to yield a very competitive cost of electricity. For example, for a fuel cell stack cost of 300 to 400/kW, it is estimated that the COE would range from 3.5 to 3.9 cents/kWh (Assuming 20% equity at 16.5%, 80% debt at 6.3%, and a levelized carrying charge of 0.12.)... 

Although several fuel cell technologies are reaching technical maturity, the economics of a fuel cell are not clear. The commercial potential of fuel cells will depend on the ability to reduce catalyst and other expensive materials costs and to manufacture the units at a competitive cost. Many uses of fuel cells place a premium on specific performance characteristics. The relatively simple alkaline fuel cells (AFC)... 

Motives for the introduction of the new business model - higher competitiveness - cost reduction - strong supply chain system - long-term business relationship ... 

Even before the optimum plant size was determined, a contractor had been selected and process design work was in progress. The contractor was selected on the basis of competitive cost plus fixed-fee bids. The contract was later converted to a turn-key type, based on the competitive-bid fixed-fee percentage and a definitive cost estimate for completion of the job. This saved about 2 months in over-all job completion time. Through duplication of equipment purchases and construction drawings, it was possible to reduce over-all completion time for three subsequent plants by as much as 8 months from the 17 months required for the first module (Fig. 2). About 29 months were required from Geld discovery to startup of the last Exxon treating facility. 

A low second law efficiency is not always realistically improvable. Thus Weber and Meissner (Thermodynamics for Chemical Engineers, John Wiley, New York, 1957) found a 6% efficiency for the separation of ethanol and water by distillation which is not substantially improvable by redesign of the distillation process. Perhaps this suggests that more efficient methods than distillation should be sought for the separation of volatile mixtures, but none has been found at competitive cost. 

Distributed generation can increase system security at competitive costs. Already DE should be as competitive as alternative generation at peak times, a key security period. If the prices for traditional resources reflect their true security enhancement costs, economics should further induce DE selection. To be effective, however, DE must achieve higher penetration rates on the system. It will take a long-term policy commitment on the part of leading nations to capitalize on the potential of DG. 

In order to assess the actual potential of the sulphur-iodine cycle for massive hydrogen production at a competitive cost, CEA has been conducting an important programme on this cycle, ranging from thermodynamic measurements to hydrogen production cost evaluation, with flow sheet optimisation, component sizing and investment cost estimation as intermediate steps. The paper will present the method used, the status of both efficiency and production cost estimations, and discuss perspectives for improvement. 

The implementation of coal gasification will occur as more data are available to eliminate technical risk. Currently we can visualize a competitive cost or 3.00 to 3.50/million Btu for LBG and MBG in large units utilizing 5,000 to 10,000 tons of coal per day. These units could provide a guaranteed supply of gas to.industry without being diverted to use for priority consumer needs. MBG particularly could become a distributed gas for industrial use. Several areas where suitable industrial plants are concentrated have been listed in a study sponsored by... 

---