3 ms·
> How are you planing to send that power to, for instance, the United States? Disregarding the massive infrastructure requirements, there are serious power loss
by elihu 6y ago
> How are you planing to send that power to, for instance, the United States? Disregarding the massive infrastructure requirements, there are serious power losses.
I just got into this discussion the other day here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26599340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26599340
A commenter estimated the losses from North Africa to the United States to be about 33% with high-voltage DC.
Wikipedia says this:
Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted at 3.5% per 1,000 km, about 50% less than AC (6.5%) lines at the same voltage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
North Africa to North America is somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 km. (1-0.035)^10 is almost exactly 70% (i.e. 30% loss). So, that actually sounds pretty reasonable.
- stcredzero 6y agoUsing microwaves to transmit power to receiving rectennas has already hit 70% efficiency. Exceeding that is very feasible. Once there is full industrial infrastructure on the Moon and in Earth orbit, building microwave antennas and ground receiving rectennas is going to scale a lot better than building more and more 10,000 km lines. For a community in the middle of nowhere building a rectenna will be relatively inexpensive, but the benefit will be like getting their own fusion plant!