In California in 2001, the wholesale price of natural gas jumped ...

[KWilfred]

In California in 2001, the wholesale price of natural gas jumped from about 4 per thousand cubic feet to 11 . The former price translates into a cost of 0.04 per kWh for the utility, while the latter translates into 0.11 per kWh.
 
  California utilities can only charge around 0.08 per kWh. Given this price and assuming the other costs are the same as those in 1991, determine about where the fossil-fuel steam generation will be the same in cost as gas.

Question 2

Is the Chernobyl accident an advertisement for passive reactor safety features? Explain.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[vkodali]

Answer to Question 1

fossil-fuel steam generation costs about 180/kW and
0.0223/kWh and a turbine's capital cost is 28/kW. Let the time at which the costs are the
same be called T. Then we equate the costs of fossil-fuel steam generation and turbine
generation for the time T:
180/kW + 0.0223/kWh x T = 28/kW + 0.11/kWh x T.
This is solved by gathering terms, and so
180/kW - 28/kW = 0.11/kWh x T - 0.0223/kWh x T.
or, 152/kW = 0.0877/kWh x T, or
T = 152/kW/(0.0877/kWh) = 1732 h.

Answer to Question 2

The Chernobyl accident was due mostly to human mess-ups. The operators were
contravening the manual to do a poorly-thought-out experiment. Passive safety constraints
cannot contain willful stupidity.

[KWilfred]

Both answers were spot on, thank you once again

[vkodali]

Great! Please up vote