8 ms·
We can build power plants in the middle of the desert and ship power out. The technology exists; we just haven't done it yet. Transmission losses are not a conc
by tomkinstinch 15y ago
We can build power plants in the middle of the desert and ship power out. The technology exists; we just haven't done it yet. Transmission losses are not a concern for superconducting cables (though maintaining the cryostat jacket is). Such cables are currently being proven before being used in larger grid connections.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/superconductors-enter-commercial-utility-service http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/superconduc...
http://www.htstriax.com/columbus.html http://www.htstriax.com/columbus.html
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/htsc/documents/pdf/fy2003/HTS_Cable_Lindsay-Demko.pdf http://www.ornl.gov/sci/htsc/documents/pdf/fy2003/HTS_Cable_...
- r00fus 15y agoForget supercondictivity, what about HVDC [1]? HVDC can be as efficient as 97%, compared with the US average of 93%. That 4% "inefficiency tax" would likely pay for long-haul HVDC connectors (as outlined in one of Obama's 2008 energy proposals) within years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Advantages_of_HVDC_over_AC_transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Adv...
- jurjenh 15y agoNew Zealand has had a 600V HVDC link from the South Island to the North Island for quite some years - most of the power is generated by the hydro lakes in the south, then delivered via a 610km link to a substation in the north, where it is fed into the normal high-voltage transmission grid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Inter-Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Inter-Island So it is a proven technology to have this as a long distance link (been in operation since 1965) and it is capable of bi-directional power transfer as well.
- nitrogen 15y agoI'm curious where you get the "600V" number from -- is that 600 volts? According to the Wikipedia page you linked the system uses "+270kV and −350kV", which is in the range I would expect. Maybe you meant 620kV, the difference between +270kV and -350kV?
- jurjenh 15y agoMy apologies, that must've been some confusion in my mind... it was a 600MW HVDC link... although it is higher now, and works are underway to bring it up to somewhere near 1.4GW.
- pjscott 15y agoHVDC definitely makes sense for connecting islands together. The cable goes underwater, and in water, the capacitance of the cable is much increased by the greater dielectric constant of the water, which makes AC transmission less efficient.
- ams6110 15y agoYou know I've never heard of HVDC until I read this. So was Edison right all along?
- r00fus 15y agoNo. AC is still far more useful in many key scenarios [1]. However, for long-distance power transmission, lots of money could be saved (and jobs created in doing so) by switching from AC to HVDC. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Disadvantages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Dis... (note: some of these are due to AC parts having economies of scale and decades of efficiencies and process that HVDC may not be able to tap into without widescale implementation)
- aidenn0 15y agoNot really. The AC transformer was the most efficient way to adapt voltages until very recently. The IGBT and GTO thyristors are the technology that makes something like HVDC affordable today, and they are very modern developments. Mercury-arc rectifiers (the technology replaced with IGBTs and GTOs) were very large and expensive, and also less efficient (even more so before the 1930s or so) so HVDC only made sense for submarine cables (which have huge capacitive losses). With IGBTs and GTO thyristors it start to become feasible to e.g. do an HVDC line across a continent. As an example the HVDC inter-island was built using mercury-arc valves (it included a submarine leg), but they have since benn replaced with solid-state devices. HVDC is also a good to tie two separate grids together; since they will be on different time-bases you can't just directly AC couple them.
- cop359 15y agoForget about superconductivity. How about flywheels?
- rosser 15y agoFlywheels are for energy storage, not transmission.
- JoelMcCracken 15y agojust let them roll to their destination!
- gmaslov 15y agoHeh. Never underestimate the power of a station wagon full of flywheels hurtling down the highway?
- wlesieutre 15y agoSteering a car full of gyroscopes in fast moving traffic? Sign me up!
- i2pi 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus
- wlesieutre 15y agoThat's really cool, I'd never heard of these. I imagine the flywheels are horizontal so that the bus can turn without trying to change their angular momentum, but I wonder if there's any effect on banked curves or going up hills.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Andaith 15y ago
- ChuckMcM 15y agoWow, those are pretty cool. Hate to be around when they lost cooling (dropping out of superconductivity would be a pretty energetic event :-). But its good news on that front. If you've ever seen the insulator jacket in an underground HVDC cable it is huge.
- onemoreact 15y agoMost of these systems both carry power and sit in a pool of coolant so they rarely experience such an 'energetic event'. AKA, if they lose power they don't need to keep things cool AND it usually takes a few hours for things to warm up anyway.
- anigbrowl 15y agoThe technology exists; we just haven't done it yet. Actually, we have, albeit with varying degrees of success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojav... http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/mar/04/local/la-me-solar-tortoise-20120304 http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/mar/04/local/la-me-so...
- SpiderX 15y agoMost of the power loss is related to using AC instead of DC.
- jes5199 15y agoCitation needed?
- m_for_monkey 15y agoThe real problem is that a nuclear power plant needs a staff of several hundred people. They can't travel 500 miles every day to work to the middle of a desert. Even if they wanted to relocate there, they would have to build a little town to serve these people and their families, and now we are back to the original problem.
- 3am 15y agoI think he meant a solar plant in the middle of the desert, not a nuclear plant. Solar plants don't need staffs that large.
- pjscott 15y agoOther problems with building nuclear plants (or any other type of plant that requires large steam turbines) in the desert include: * Difficulty cooling. If you build next to an ocean or river, you can just use some of that water to provide the cold end of the temperature differential that you're using to generate power. Deserts are trickier, and more expensive. * Transportation. If you build next to navigable waterways, you can ship really big components on barges. In deserts, you can ship some things by rail. But hey, at least it's politically convenient to stick scary power plants in deserts.
- DennisP 15y agoSome of the GenIV designs don't require water cooling.
- pjscott 15y agoThey all require some kind of cooling. Fundamentally, a nuclear reactor sets up one end of a temperature differential that you can use to do work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_cycle Water just happens to be a particularly convenient coolant.
- DennisP 15y ago
- yaix 15y agoNo superconductors needed, DC power conversion is the key. There is a large project on the way in Europe/Northern Afria called Desertec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec