4 ms·

Something I have been curious about for a while: How thick of a cable would you need to implement this strategy with traditional cables? I’m imagining something

Something I have been curious about for a while: How thick of a cable would you need to implement this strategy with traditional cables? I’m imagining something like a large oil pipeline, with a diameter of a couple feet. Is this viable?

CapitalistCartr 5y ago
The usual method is to increase the voltage, rather than the wire gauge. That's why we have 1.1 million volt transmission wires.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
opwieurposiu 5y ago
To handle half the world's avg electricity use, I estimate it would take a ~3ft thick copper cable at 1.1Mv hvdc. This ignores the heating of cable which might become a problem. Also you might need two of these unless you want do earth return. global_consumption_joules = 22848E12 * 3600 seconds_per_year = 365.25*24*3600 avg_power = global_consumption_joules/seconds_per_year hvdc_voltage = 1100E3 amps = (avg_power*.5)/hvdc_voltage # assume shiping half the power to dark side of planet sq_in_copper = amps/1000 # 1000A/sq in of copper dia_in = (4*sq_in_copper/3.14)**.5 print(dia_in/12) # 3.23ft dia of cable
- algo_trader 5y ago
  This seems very thin. The planned Sunrise Australian Singapore cable, ~5000km, ~5GW, this is 1/1000th of the power, so a cable 1/30th as thick? Under 2 inches??? Anyway - can you maybe lend a quick hand for a more practical calculation? How do we move 10MW DC, from a battery pack, to a motor 200m away? Can i just hook the batteries in parallel and get to 10Kv ?! Obviously a liquid cooled cable.
  - opwieurposiu 5y ago
    Area increases as a square of diameter, and the square root of 1000 is 31, so 1/30th as thick seems about right. Current state of the art battery packs run at 800V. Making a 10kV pack would be difficult. 10MW is about the size of the largest wind turbines so maybe a wind turbine engineer could help you.

4 ms·

Something I have been curious about for a while: How thick of a cable would you need to implement this strategy with traditional cables? I’m imagining something

by benchaney 5y ago

CapitalistCartr 5y ago
The usual method is to increase the voltage, rather than the wire gauge. That's why we have 1.1 million volt transmission wires.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
opwieurposiu 5y ago
To handle half the world's avg electricity use, I estimate it would take a ~3ft thick copper cable at 1.1Mv hvdc. This ignores the heating of cable which might become a problem. Also you might need two of these unless you want do earth return. global_consumption_joules = 22848E12 * 3600 seconds_per_year = 365.25*24*3600 avg_power = global_consumption_joules/seconds_per_year hvdc_voltage = 1100E3 amps = (avg_power*.5)/hvdc_voltage # assume shiping half the power to dark side of planet sq_in_copper = amps/1000 # 1000A/sq in of copper dia_in = (4*sq_in_copper/3.14)**.5 print(dia_in/12) # 3.23ft dia of cable
- algo_trader 5y ago
  This seems very thin. The planned Sunrise Australian Singapore cable, ~5000km, ~5GW, this is 1/1000th of the power, so a cable 1/30th as thick? Under 2 inches??? Anyway - can you maybe lend a quick hand for a more practical calculation? How do we move 10MW DC, from a battery pack, to a motor 200m away? Can i just hook the batteries in parallel and get to 10Kv ?! Obviously a liquid cooled cable.
  - opwieurposiu 5y ago
    Area increases as a square of diameter, and the square root of 1000 is 31, so 1/30th as thick seems about right. Current state of the art battery packs run at 800V. Making a 10kV pack would be difficult. 10MW is about the size of the largest wind turbines so maybe a wind turbine engineer could help you.