10-20-2018, 07:04 AM
Seriously, guys, why are you even debating this???
There is no way in hell, given Hawaii's energy costs, that commercial melting of basalts could even come close to being economically viable. It would be far cheaper to ship container loads of basalt to the mainland on (mostly empty) cargo ships than it would be to ship the needed fuel to Hawaii to melt that basalt...
I was talking to an engineer about a prospective project over here and he asked me what we pay for electrical power - when I told him, he about choked and then told me that, where they are located, they pay 5 cents per kwh...
And, even if that disparity wasn't so great, why would anyone want to ship basalt to the mainland when Washington, Oregon, and Idaho have more basalt on the surface of those states than Hawaii has sitting in the middle of the Pacific...
There is no way in hell, given Hawaii's energy costs, that commercial melting of basalts could even come close to being economically viable. It would be far cheaper to ship container loads of basalt to the mainland on (mostly empty) cargo ships than it would be to ship the needed fuel to Hawaii to melt that basalt...
I was talking to an engineer about a prospective project over here and he asked me what we pay for electrical power - when I told him, he about choked and then told me that, where they are located, they pay 5 cents per kwh...
And, even if that disparity wasn't so great, why would anyone want to ship basalt to the mainland when Washington, Oregon, and Idaho have more basalt on the surface of those states than Hawaii has sitting in the middle of the Pacific...