pressure drop criterion is applied when necessary. For a given diameter of the smallest pipe in the system (possibly less than Dcrit.), all the other pipe sizes are calculated depending on the pipe flowrates based on a minimum cost criterion. If a diameter for one of the larger pipes is greater than Dcrit then the cost optimization criterion automatically reduces that diameter by a specified amount. This in turn increases the power consumption in that particular pipe length as well as the pressure drop. Thus, the pipes within Regime 2 should require somewhat greater pumping power costs than in Regime 1 because they are more expensive. The mathematical details for this approach of dealing in a reasonable manner with the pipe cost data are described in Appendix A. The other major cost area is the pipe insulation in order to maintain reasonable heat leak. The insulation thickness around each pipe length depends upon the pipe diameter, temperature of fluid within the pipe and the cost of installing a given insulation thickness on a given diameter of pipe. Calcium silicate with a thin aluminum weather jacket is considered as an appropriate commercial insulation. Estimate of the cost of installing calcium silicate as a function of insulation thickness and pipe diameter are based on Reference 1. As a convenience in this report, the ballpark figure of $15/ft3 was used regardless of pipe size and insulation thickness. The cost of fluid to charge the pipe network system was a small fraction of the transport system cost in every case, but was included in the analysis for completeness. Water was assumed to cost $0.01/pound, helium $0.25/pound, NaK $0.20/pound and CH4 $0.10/pound. These energy transport system costs are in 1974 dollars. An inflation factor of 1.11 is used in Section 4.2 when these results are used in the power plant system cost analysis expressed in 1975 dollars. 3.2.1.3 Economic Performance. The cost of the base case of each of the five types of transport networks was estimated for three different field sizes. This
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