3 ms·
> no power grid is 100% lossless over long distances Power loss is actually just around 5% per 1000km. So if electricity is made twice as cheap it can be trans
by lightgreen 6y ago
> no power grid is 100% lossless over long distances
Power loss is actually just around 5% per 1000km. So if electricity is made twice as cheap it can be transferred virtually anywhere in the US from a single point in today’s price (of course we won’t build a single power plant, that’s just an illustration of the fact that transmission cost is not prohibitively high).
- derefr 6y agoThe US (and/or China, Russia, and Canada) are bad examples, because most countries are not nearly as large, and most countries want some measure of "ensured by our own hand" electrical-grid independence/fault-tolerance (even though they share a power-grid with their neighbours), just like most countries want a standing border-defence force (even if they participate in a defence alliance.) So what you'd get in practice, in a nuclear-first world, is O(K log N) power plants: i.e., log(N) plants per country, for each of K≥195 countries.
- lightgreen 6y agoThe world already operates more than 195 nuclear power plants.