3 ms·

No, not like that at all. Laying cable is not difficult. Manufacturing 10,000km+ of cable is difficult, but we literally already have factories doing it. No whe

No, not like that at all. Laying cable is not difficult. Manufacturing 10,000km+ of cable is difficult, but we literally already have factories doing it. No where near space colonisation difficult. We have 7000km gas pipelines. You think electrical cables would be more difficult or more resources? I think you over estimate how much land you need to power the whole world. There is plenty of space. Even on islands in the Pacific Ocean.

littlestymaar 3y ago
> No, not like that at all. Laying cable is not difficult. Manufacturing 10,000km+ of cable is difficult, but we literally already have factories doing it. You have no idea of the amount of such cables that would be needed, nor than you have any idea of the difficulty of laying them. It is difficult in the same way sending rockets is difficult: we know how to do it and have been doing it routinely for decades, but that doesn't mean we could scale it to the point your project would need, very much like space colonization. > We have 7000km gas pipelines. You think electrical cables would be more difficult or more resources? Yes, because it's “lengths times number of cables” that poses problems. The amount of power you'd need to be able to transfer is beyond imagination! I leave next to a nuclear plant that produces a mere 3.6GW of power, and there are multiple high tension power lines going from there, and only up to a few hundred kilometers away: in your fantasy you'd need A THOUSAND TIME more (over thousands of time more kilometers). If you managed to send a spacecraft that's a thousand time bigger than ISS, that's already space colonization for you already. Turns out scaling this up a thousand time is far from straightforward. > I think you over estimate how much land you need to power the whole world. There is plenty of space. Even on islands in the Pacific Ocean. You are underestimating it vastly. The world consumes 30 PWh of electricity a year. At 30% of capacity factor (which is the best you can hope for, realistically only achievable in low-latitude deserts without clouds), and 300MW/km², you'd need 40 000 km²: that's the size of Switzerland worth of solar farm, good luck putting that on pacific Islands… Orders of magnitude matter, and you definitely lack the sense of scale for these things. What you're talking about is science-fiction material.
- onethought 3y ago
  So you are comparing the global use of energy for a year against the nighttime load for a single day (ie when the sun is on the pacific )? It’s a cool idea, and I’m pretty certain something like it is going to happen over time. Given we are seeing 10-100x (in gwh) of renewables be provisioned compared to any other type. So I guess welcome to science fiction!
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > So you are comparing the global use of energy for a year against the nighttime load for a single day (ie when the sun is on the pacific )? Well, this comments explains a lot. Why are you even having this discussion if your engineering literacy is at this level? > It’s a cool idea, and I’m pretty certain something like it is going to happen over time. As unlikely as space colonization, but who know what can happen in the next centuries. > Given we are seeing 10-100x (in gwh) of renewables be provisioned compared to any other type. So I guess welcome to science fiction! Fortunately nobody is actually interested in trying to make your whole-earth storage-free solar electric grid. So actual engineers may actually get something done ;)
    - onethought 3y ago
      > Well, this comments explains a lot. Why are you even having this discussion if your engineering literacy is at this level? No it doesn't. I think you're missing what I mean. You need enough panels to generate ~82TWh/day. That roughly equates to 45 million panels of around 2m^2 so you'd roughly need around 136km^2. So they'd fit on Hawaii. That's for the worlds entire consumption though, so even though you could fit the 45 million panels in one spot, in the middle of the pacific (so your previous point is moot) - you'd spread them around the world. So despite no one apparently being interested in this crazy "whole-earth storage-free solar" We've already installed 1.75 billion panels globally to date. So the numbers are not a crazy engineering challenge. It's actually just a distribution problem. But sure, stick to attacking me rather than prosecuting the idea. I'm sure that's how all innovation happens right?

littlestymaar 3y ago

> No, not like that at all. Laying cable is not difficult. Manufacturing 10,000km+ of cable is difficult, but we literally already have factories doing it. You have no idea of the amount of such cables that would be needed, nor than you have any idea of the difficulty of laying them. It is difficult in the same way sending rockets is difficult: we know how to do it and have been doing it routinely for decades, but that doesn't mean we could scale it to the point your project would need, very much like space colonization. > We have 7000km gas pipelines. You think electrical cables would be more difficult or more resources? Yes, because it's “lengths times number of cables” that poses problems. The amount of power you'd need to be able to transfer is beyond imagination! I leave next to a nuclear plant that produces a mere 3.6GW of power, and there are multiple high tension power lines going from there, and only up to a few hundred kilometers away: in your fantasy you'd need A THOUSAND TIME more (over thousands of time more kilometers). If you managed to send a spacecraft that's a thousand time bigger than ISS, that's already space colonization for you already. Turns out scaling this up a thousand time is far from straightforward. > I think you over estimate how much land you need to power the whole world. There is plenty of space. Even on islands in the Pacific Ocean. You are underestimating it vastly. The world consumes 30 PWh of electricity a year. At 30% of capacity factor (which is the best you can hope for, realistically only achievable in low-latitude deserts without clouds), and 300MW/km², you'd need 40 000 km²: that's the size of Switzerland worth of solar farm, good luck putting that on pacific Islands… Orders of magnitude matter, and you definitely lack the sense of scale for these things. What you're talking about is science-fiction material.

onethought 3y ago
So you are comparing the global use of energy for a year against the nighttime load for a single day (ie when the sun is on the pacific )? It’s a cool idea, and I’m pretty certain something like it is going to happen over time. Given we are seeing 10-100x (in gwh) of renewables be provisioned compared to any other type. So I guess welcome to science fiction!
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > So you are comparing the global use of energy for a year against the nighttime load for a single day (ie when the sun is on the pacific )? Well, this comments explains a lot. Why are you even having this discussion if your engineering literacy is at this level? > It’s a cool idea, and I’m pretty certain something like it is going to happen over time. As unlikely as space colonization, but who know what can happen in the next centuries. > Given we are seeing 10-100x (in gwh) of renewables be provisioned compared to any other type. So I guess welcome to science fiction! Fortunately nobody is actually interested in trying to make your whole-earth storage-free solar electric grid. So actual engineers may actually get something done ;)
  - onethought 3y ago
    > Well, this comments explains a lot. Why are you even having this discussion if your engineering literacy is at this level? No it doesn't. I think you're missing what I mean. You need enough panels to generate ~82TWh/day. That roughly equates to 45 million panels of around 2m^2 so you'd roughly need around 136km^2. So they'd fit on Hawaii. That's for the worlds entire consumption though, so even though you could fit the 45 million panels in one spot, in the middle of the pacific (so your previous point is moot) - you'd spread them around the world. So despite no one apparently being interested in this crazy "whole-earth storage-free solar" We've already installed 1.75 billion panels globally to date. So the numbers are not a crazy engineering challenge. It's actually just a distribution problem. But sure, stick to attacking me rather than prosecuting the idea. I'm sure that's how all innovation happens right?