10 ms·
Sahara to Berlin is ~5,000 km over land and would pass thru ~7 countries (including syria & potentially lebanon). Assuming no electricity theft, high transmiss
by Hammershaft 6y ago
Sahara to Berlin is ~5,000 km over land and would pass thru ~7 countries (including syria & potentially lebanon).
Assuming no electricity theft, high transmission powerline losses range between 0.5% - 1.1% per 160 km [1], and losses are generally higher on hotter days, leaving us with a probable loss of between 20% - 35%.
I've argued this before, but I would rather avoid unproven storage concepts entirely and fasttrack nuclear reactors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission?wp...
- D_Alex 6y agoWhat if we move the aluminium smelters to Sahara?
- baybal2 6y agoUnions will protest
- chr1 6y agoWhy do you need it to be overland? Cables can go under the sea without much problem.
- raverbashing 6y agoWho says it has to be over land??
- ben_w 6y ago~3000km if you put an undersea cable in the Mediterranean. Also, lower losses at higher voltages. I have no idea what HVDC underwater cables cost, their maximum voltage, nor their losses, so let’s go with your original figures, and the worst case: 35% losses. The average of the BNEF 2021, Lazard 2020, and IRENA 2020 studies says that utility scale solar costs $48/MWh while nuclear costs $164/MWh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Global_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... 35% loss would make that $73.8/MWh. At these distances I must assume the grid itself is a non-trivial cost, and estimating that cost certainly deserves a lot more careful thought than I can put into one comment, but that grid would have to cost effectively more than $90/MWh to be worse than nuclear.
- fastball 6y agoFirstly, your undersea cable is gonna cost a lot to build and maintain. Next, nuclear is expensive because the economies of scale are basically zero. Make a nuclear power plant factory and you can get those numbers way down. Finally, cost probably isn't the right way to look at it. The issue at hand is mostly efficiency, where obviously the nuclear option wins handily.
- ben_w 6y ago> Make a nuclear power plant factory and you can get those numbers way down. Except we’ve never done that so we don’t know how big a scale we’d need to get costs down. In the absence of evidence, it’s entirely conceivable there isn’t enough economically recoverable uranium in the world for mass production of reactors to be cost effective. Therefore the only cost estimate we can rely on is what we have actually managed thus far. > Finally, cost probably isn't the right way to look at it. The issue at hand is mostly efficiency, where obviously the nuclear option wins handily. I disagree with both of these claims. For the first: for most of my life, the argument against green power, the reason nothing changed, was always the cost. Make the solution cheap and the problem goes away all by itself. For the second: so long as it is energy positive (EROI>>1, true for both), and the cost per unit is low (which you’re already dismissing), and you’re not resource constrained (we aren’t), I can’t see what other measure of efficiency matters much. The light-flux to electricity conversion efficiency? No more important than thermodynamic limits in a reactor heat engine. Resistive losses in transmission? I’ve just demonstrated that is irrelevant.
- fsflover 6y ago> Make the solution cheap and the problem goes away all by itself. If we also made the energy storage cheap then you would be right. But it's not cheap.
- ben_w 6y agoBatteries combined with PV are already cheaper than nuclear, and grids of this scale and in these locations reduce the need for storage in the first place.
- Gwypaas 6y agoWhy are you quoting AC systems when such a system would certainly be DC? According to Wiki a UHVDC system has losses of 2.6% per 800 km leaving us with a total loss of about 10%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Advancements_in_UHVDC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Ad...
- akvadrako 6y agoChina built a 1100 kV / 12 GW line with losses of 1.5% per 1000 km. I have no idea if that's cost effective or not. https://asian-power.com/power-utility/news/chinas-thermal-coal-demand-slip-it-completes-3324km-transmission-line https://asian-power.com/power-utility/news/chinas-thermal-co...
- Synaesthesia 6y agoYes it's the world's most advanced and also unique tech which they designed specifically for their needs.
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y agoI do not see what it would not be cost effective for the amount of power it would be used. To power entire world with solar we would need solar installation size of Spain or bit less in Sahara, and to connect about 2000km cable over Algeria–Morocco i really do not see the issue, and that does not include current wind solar installations.
- tim333 6y agoNorthern Egypt to Greece is closer than Israel to Greece for which an underwater power DC cable is already being built. It's pretty standard tech these days. Discussion last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26385374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26385374 (455 comments)
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y agoNeither 3000Km or 5000 you have 1-2 countries if you choose route over Morocco and Spain so between 1000km and 2000km and Strait of Gibraltar has max depth: 900 m and width of just ~15 km.
- _Microft 6y agoThe numbers for the losses are way off, at least for high-voltage direct current transmission lines which would be preferrable for such distances. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Advantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Ad...
- Havoc 6y agoA hypothetical route map is already available: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid Pretty sure it’s very much a concept only at this stage