> "Chojkiewicz and her colleagues at Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy studied the use of advanced conductors that wrap

> "Chojkiewicz and her colleagues at Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy studied the use of advanced conductors that wrap more aluminum around a smaller, stronger composite core. These Aluminum Conductor Composite Cores (ACCCs) are more conductive and can operate at higher temperatures, resulting in roughly a doubling of capacity for an equivalent diameter wire." It isn't clear from the text, but the wires might not actually be any heavier, given that they replace the steel core with a composite. Aluminum is about 2.7 g/cm^3, whereas steel is around 7.85. I'd imagine they can switch to a slightly smaller cable size if they have to keep to the original weight and a new cable happens to be a little heavier at the same diameter. I'm kind of surprised they don't lose the advantages of stranded cable when switching to something that looks more like a solid cable. As I understand it, for AC wiring you usually want a lot of strands because most of the current tends to travel on the surface. Maybe that's less of a thing for high voltage. Or maybe the seams between the strands are enough to cause the skin effect even if they're tight-fitting.