Suppose it costs a utility 0.04/kWh to generate electricity at ...

[mikaylakyoung]

Suppose it costs a utility 0.04/kWh to generate electricity at the generating facility, that long-distance energy transport from the generating facility
 
  to your local substation
  costs the utility 0.0002/kWh/km and that local transport costs 0.0016/kWh/km.
  a. If the plant is 250 km from the substation and the substation is 25 km from your home,what is the total cost of 1 kWh of electricity in your home?
 b. How much of the cost is for local, as opposed to long distance, transmission?
  c. Can the utility sell it for 0.06/kWh and make a profit? for 0.10/kWh? Explain.

Question 2

Chernobyl demonstrated that nuclear energy can never be a secure form of generating energy.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[amynguyen1221]

Answer to Question 1

a. The cost of transmission from the generating facility is
0.0002/kWh/km x 250 km + 0.0016/kWh/km x 25 km = 0.05 + 0.04.
The total cost in this case would be the original generating cost of 0.04 plus 0.09 for
transmission, a total of 0.13.
b. The proportion for local transmission is 4/13 = 0.308 (30.8).
c. No, it presumably needs to recover the cost of generating and transmitting the electricity.

Answer to Question 2

The Chernobyl accident certainly demonstrated that RBMK reactors react badly
when humans contravene every operating regulation in the manual. It reinforces the lesson
of Three Mile Island that human mistakes are responsible for many problems, and that,
given the opportunity, humans will make mistakes. The consequences of these mistakes are
glaringly obvious in retrospect. This means that it is a good idea to concentrate on training
of operators so that fewer mistakes get made, and those that do are reacted to in a more
efficient and straightforward manner than in the past. However, this remark is true of many
aspects of technology, from refineries to chemical plants to ammunition dumps.
So the primary lesson of Chernobyl (and Three Mile Island) is that all technology is
susceptible to misuse or mistake, and there is a need to make sure that people who work
with any dangerous technology clearly understand the risks involved and have learned
useful ways to respond to the inevitable problems that will arise from time to time, whether
from mischance or malevolence.

[mikaylakyoung]

Thanks

[amynguyen1221]

Welcome