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Hi y'all,
Molten salt stored in heavily insulated underground tanks only loses ~1% of it heat per day. At 1100F starting temp, that leaves a pretty good range to generate high pressure steam.
The 10% transmission losses are for high voltage DC transmission lines -- which are excellent and the best we have at the moment. This is how we need to do all long distance transmission, and it would help for linking renewable energy sources with distant users.
Typical transmission losses however are a lot worse under heavy load conditions: 30% (or more).
Electricity generation efficiency is around 33% -- so 2/3 of the energy of the fuel used, is lost at the very beginning. And that doesn't even count the energy we invest in getting the carbon fuel in the first place (mining/drilling/transport). Exploration is yet more energy invested.
So, if you then add the inefficiencies for the user, the overall efficiency from the original fuel source to the "work" produced for the user -- it is somewhere under 10%, and it may be under 5%.
Now coal pollutes like nobody's business, and petroleum fire plants also spew a lot of nasty stuff -- and the effect of these is very costly. Nuclear has yet to have a solution for waste storage -- how much money have we invested to date?
All fuel based energy sources require to invest in exploration, fuel gathering, transportation to the plant that you have built -- and you to pay for fuel over the life of the generation system; plus they all involve maintenance. What will the cost of the fuel be in the future?!
Renewable energy systems require you to built the systems and to maintain them. There will be no increases in fuel cost; because there is no fuel involved.
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