Part 6

GEOCOGEN Project – Part 6

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Part 6 – Economic Concerns

The steam generators and the electrical side will be essentially the same as either a thermal power plant or a nuclear power plant of the same electrical capacity. The tunnel and downhole equipment will be about the same cost as a conventional thermal plant with all its boiler and utility installations or a nuclear plant with its massive reactor and retention building plus utilities. The estimated capital cost of the complete project is roughly equal to a complete thermal power plant of the same electrical capacity (slightly more than a gas-fired unit but less than a lignite-fired unit), and somewhat less than a nuclear facility of the same electrical capacity.

The only continuing costs will be capital service (which is there for every power plant, but will be less if the capital cost is lower), operations staff (also present for all facilities, but certainly no more than for a thermal or nuclear power plant), and routine maintenance (ditto). Initial planning is for sufficient spare equipment such that all the individual pieces of equipment above ground may be removed from service for routine maintenance without reducing the overall plant capacity, so, in theory, the complete plant would not come off line for 50 years. One BIG difference in operating costs is that the GEOCOGEN power plant will not have to buy any fuel nor will it have to transport fuel to the site (pipeline for gas, maybe two for security of supply, trains, trucks, ships, etc.) or dispose of waste from the fuel (fly-ash, clinker, spent uranium rods, flue gas desulfurising adsorbents, etc.).

Current costing estimates put the cost of electricity from a GEOCOGEN plant at significantly less than the typical European electricity cost today (around 40-65% of the typical price).

The construction and erection time for the GEOCOGEN project will be considerably shorter than for a similarly-sized nuclear facility (reason: permitting of a nuclear facility always takes a long time because of anti-nuclear activists and unhappy neighbours) and about the same as for a similarly-sized thermal power plant. In a situation where the subsurface quality is known, the time constraint for the GEOCOGEN plant will most likely be a race between the construction of the tunnel and the delivery of the large turbogenerator sets and the transformers. This equipment delivery time will impact every type of project equally. The tunnel for the GEOCOGEN plant is expected to be completed in roughly the same time span as the large mechanical equipment delivery requires, and this sets the schedule for the GEOCOGEN – roughly five to six years from the green light to mechanical completion. Startup probably would require another three to six months, maybe longer on the first GEOCOGEN project, so the total schedule is approximately 6 to 6½ years from “GO”. This will result in a reasonable financial result compared to a longer completion schedule (if you have questions about this, please contact us and we can explain it in simple English – or mathematically – for you).

Bottom line here? Lower cost and lower financial and operating expenses for a GEOCOGEN facility at the same power generation level.

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GEOCOGEN Project – Part 6