4 ms·
That's interesting. Not knowing much about electricity read somewhere that it goes ~500km max and was wondering how are they going to get it from Africa to Euro
by kreetx 3y ago
That's interesting. Not knowing much about electricity read somewhere that it goes ~500km max and was wondering how are they going to get it from Africa to Europe.
- ceejayoz 3y agoIt ran into financial troubles, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link was to be 2,800 miles long. The Morocco-UK cable mentioned in the article would be 2,400; "transmission losses for such a long cable will be relatively high at 13%". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Projec...
- defrost 3y agoHmm- finacial in the sense that at least one large investor went "Nope". The underlying actual issue was the cable path .. not so much the length but the trip across a lively and still active earthquake | volcano | fault ridden region ( that spawned the Krakatoa eruption and others ). The engineering, repeater stations, need for a "backup" cable (that was just as likely to break) etc just didn't add up. The Singapore | Australia cable project may rise again - but for now exporting Australian sunlight is going forward via ammonia shipments.
- ceejayoz 3y agoYes; the point is that mere cable length doesn't seem to be an inherently unsolvable physics problem.
- londons_explore 3y agoThe 500km max number was before people considered using voltages over ~400kV. Those higher voltages are now more feasible due to solid state power conversion and better insulators. Also, 500km was a good economic number, because typically if you need to move power more than 500km, then it is better to build generation at the other end and ship the coal/oil there.