Might as well assume they will be higher than chemical violet, chemical thermal and chemical free thermal*. Reasons:
Recover R&D costs - agree
Recover new manufacturing technique implementation costs - agree
Cover lost profits from chemical sales - agree
*Faster exposure - don't agree, chem/process-free plates aren't automatically faster
*[Expected] longer run length - not seen any evidence that this is a selling point of chem/process free and not seen it claimed on any literature
All types of non-safe light plates need some kind of post-exposure treatment which makes the whole thing similar to what's in place now albeit without the developer.
You'll either replace the processor with some kind of wash unit or, in the case of the Fuji Pro-V, some kind of conversion kit is being talked about for some existing processors.
The Pro-V still needs preheat and chilling so from the POV of energy consumption there isn't much difference between that and copnventional processing. The water useage is lower i believe.
"If it doesn't require a chemical post-imaging process then will the plate be compatible with already installed violet imagesetters?" The idea is to make the plates compatible with existing imaging devices. Originally the Pro-V was designed to need more power but this has been changed.
Is visible-light chem-free better than thermal chem/process-free? Maybe not, and maybe ultimately the future is thermal as that's where the true process-free options are, but for those of us with visible light solutions it's a great improvement.
