In article
441f18af-5797-496b-b6a1-f4a3895d89f1@x19g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Bret Cahill <BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:
Lots of people in industry and finance probably have these numbers in
the backs of their minds but they should be explicitly stated, even if
it requires burying the text with footnotes.
What would be the time to retool a major plant for an engine?
What would be the time to build nuclear power plants, PV plants,
battery plants, biodiesel farms and "refineries" with a significant
output?
Markets work and work fast but . . .
Bret Cahill
It is the industry estimate that the Nuclear plants that are in the
permitting process will not come on line prior to 2020. In China - new
Nuclear plants take 5 years - design to operation - in the western world
is it closer to 12 to 15 - mostly legal and environmental hearings and
paper work.
The new expansion of the Detroit Marathon refinery from initial plans to
completion will take approximately 7 years when complete in 2010.
Sighting windmills and getting permits takes 3 to 5 years in the US
right now - and it is growing as people begin to protest them.
Production in most plants is backlogged 3 to 4 years - even with
companies like GE doubling production every 12 to 18 months.
Conventional solar cells take pure silicon crystal as a starting point -
the New Dow plant to make them in Michigan has taken 4 years from
initial permit requests to permission to build - it may be another 2
years before there is significant output - this is the bottleneck for
most new conventional solar cell production.
Most farmers say that it takes 3 to 5 years from clearing the land until
a new field hits full production - they need to balance the soil and
match the production method to the field in Northern climates - tropical
is different - in 3 to 5 years most fields that were rain forests are
burned out.
The last time Toyota did a major engine plant overhaul - from start of
the design of the engine thru testing and then production it was 7 years
- Ford and GM take about the same amount of time.
Building an ethanol plant in the million gallon range in the US takes a
year or two for permitting in rural areas and another year to 18 months
to build.
If we really wanted to clear away all the legal stuff and go fast, we
could do things faster - but the companies that make the pieces that are
needed to make the plants would have to have the ability to expand too,
many of them have moved production off shore. We would also need to
expand the base of engineers and scientists as well as quality control
people.
