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"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." –Andrew Tanenbaum, 1981 We deliver everything else by road. We

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." –Andrew Tanenbaum, 1981 We deliver everything else by road. We should deliver power by road. The roads are already there. Once most long-distance trucking is done by robot (~10 years me thinks), there will be plenty of bandwidth. We need "standard units of power" (Sups) that are interchangeable with and usable with everything that produces and consumes power. The interfaces should be standardized. The internals can be proprietary.

dhritzkiv 4y ago
I don't know if I quite understand this idea, but why road and not rail, or something more purpose built? High production locales and high demand ones are most likely to be spread across long distances
- intrasight 4y ago
  Rail is indeed appropriate too. In fact better and we should have more of it. But I say no to "special purpose" and thus to transmission lines too. They are ugly and inefficient and we'd need to invest trillions, as these analysts are saying. Just makes no sense when we can instead use rail and road. Invest those trillions in better rail and road. And people in those "high production locales" I'm sure would rather have rail and road than transmission lines. Am I missing something? It seems so obvious to me.
  - badpun 4y ago
    I'd MUCH rather have transmission lines behind my window than a busy rail or road, generating noise, pollution, congestion and danger.
Mil0dV 4y ago
This is undesirable in the same way shipping water via trucks is a lot less efficient than using pipes. For some use cases where electricity doesn't work, trucks with e.g. methane could work. For everything else it's just way to inefficient to convert, store, transport and then convert it again. Same issue with hydrogen - from source to force applied in a car, it's 22% efficient, compared to 79% for an EV.
- intrasight 4y ago
  In many places, lines aren't going to be built. So the question is what's the best way to move power via road?

dhritzkiv 4y ago

I don't know if I quite understand this idea, but why road and not rail, or something more purpose built? High production locales and high demand ones are most likely to be spread across long distances

intrasight 4y ago
Rail is indeed appropriate too. In fact better and we should have more of it. But I say no to "special purpose" and thus to transmission lines too. They are ugly and inefficient and we'd need to invest trillions, as these analysts are saying. Just makes no sense when we can instead use rail and road. Invest those trillions in better rail and road. And people in those "high production locales" I'm sure would rather have rail and road than transmission lines. Am I missing something? It seems so obvious to me.
- badpun 4y ago
  I'd MUCH rather have transmission lines behind my window than a busy rail or road, generating noise, pollution, congestion and danger.

Mil0dV 4y ago

This is undesirable in the same way shipping water via trucks is a lot less efficient than using pipes. For some use cases where electricity doesn't work, trucks with e.g. methane could work. For everything else it's just way to inefficient to convert, store, transport and then convert it again. Same issue with hydrogen - from source to force applied in a car, it's 22% efficient, compared to 79% for an EV.

intrasight 4y ago
In many places, lines aren't going to be built. So the question is what's the best way to move power via road?