3 ms·

At this point you might as well just put cables in the hole that you had to dig up, right?

• minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  Wired cables still have electrical resistence. Better to beam power over buried vacuum tubes.
  • ben_w 4y ago
    These systems are less efficient than even mediocre cables. But if you could affordably construct a continental scale vacuum tube, you could do much better than even a good existing industry standard cable: Vacuum is a good insulator, so you can put any superconducting cable you like in the middle of the vacuum tube and keep it cold with minimal cost. In principle you could even do away with the cable, by shooting electrons down the tube and collect them at the other end. No resistance so this is a room-temperature superconductor (non-quantum, I believe the term is "ballistic superconductor").
    • minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      I know, that's why it was a joke. Buried vacuum tubes would be stupid crazy.