[tuatoru]

> Or is scaling up the controllable elements of a lab environment for fullscale production really so difficult?

It's even more difficult than that. :-)

Ideas have negative value; lab prototypes also have negative value; pilot plants are worth a small fraction of what they cost - scrap value.

You get value from full scale production, and every bit of that value is paid for in the engineering required to get to full scale.

[iseanstevens]

I don’t think functional prototypes have negative value…

[tuatoru]

The cost of the great number of prototypes that fail to scale far exceeds the value of the few that do go on to be workable technologies.