Impressive piece of work, first time I’ve heard of this.
I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
The tunnels look tight enough, and boiling liquid nitrogen from a leak could cause asphyxiation I imagine.
"I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing."
Yeah tunnels underground would be better for superconducting cables, but it is indeed not really a thing as the cooling and installing and maintainance would be waaaay more expensive, than just using higher voltage. Or if one really cares about the loss, use direct current - but we are talking aber very small distances here.
If superconducting would be easy, we likely just would have fusion plants everywhere with no need for transporting electricity long distances.
There's a cool effect where if you hold a fluorescent tube under a high voltage power line, capacitive coupling from the varying electric field causes it to light up. Some energy is continually leaking out via this route, the tube just reveals it. (Magnetic induction too)
An interesting article, I’ll download the IoP report and maybe read it.
But it talks about doing the hard work to improve the Technological Readiness Level from 7 to 9. Although these cables need rare earths so might be problematic.
The way the regulator regulates capital returns incentivises overspending on lavish infrastructure works as a way to return more profits back to the shareholders.
It's a common claim on HN that when a regulator caps profit margins, that incentivizes the entity to make-work to increase absolute revenue and thus profits. But capital markets, i.e. investors, only care about marginal returns. Unless your profit margin cap is really high relative to average returns in the global market, there's no market pressure to do this, AFAICT. Capital projects require investment, but what investors have so much money burning holes in their pockets that they're eager to invest at marginal rates lower than what they could invest elsewhere?
The only financial incentive for this would have to come internally from the company, say from executives whose compensation would increase merely by dint of larger absolute revenues. For regulated entities maybe that's plausible? But typically executive compensation is usually tied to margins and given in stock.
I only just came to this realization when reading about the effect of tariffs and a description of why they drive up prices much more than you think. If the import price on a widget is $100, a 10% tariff drives it up to $110. If the next purchaser in the supply chain was originally paying $X, you might think they would just pay $X + $10, and on down the chain, so that retail prices only rise by $10. But that's not how it works. If the importer was adding 20% (not atypical), they're going to need to sell the widget at $120 + $10 + ($10 * 20%), so $132.00. The next purchaser will need to do the same, but on their purchase price. Whereas before they were selling at $120 + ($120 * 0.20) = 144.00, now they need to sell at $132 + ($132 * 0.20) = $158.40, an $18 jump, not $10. It compounds on down the chain. Why? Your investors are expecting you to add a Y% margin. The reality is a little more complex, of course. Maybe a supplier can get by with a smaller profit margin, but the floor is going to be their cost of capital for buying supply, which may be least 5-10%.
> Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
Yeah, the cost isn’t worth it.
Buying two transformers to step up the voltage on one end and step down the voltage at the other end is going to be several orders of magnitude cheaper than actively cooling cables to 20K for their entire length.
Indeed, the cooling infra needed for cryo makes the price per watt go up by unreasonable amounts per unit length.
Also your cryo liquid should ideally be something that doesn't do the following things:
1. Leaks — shouldn't cause asphyxiation risk to humans who need to fix the leak.
2. Broken cable due to disaster – coolant doesn't turn into explosives when in contact with high voltage high current electricity.
However, UHV DC electricity in tunnels could be financially attractive and safe if you can cool the tunnels properly (no superconducting cryo)
> However, UHV DC electricity in tunnels could be financially attractive and safe if you can cool the tunnels properly (no superconducting cryo)
AC transformers are so much cheaper than DC converter stations that I don’t think this will ever be true. At the distances HVDC has a distinct advantage at, you wouldn’t be building tunnels. HVDC is mostly useful for grid ties between unsynchronized grids.
I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
The tunnels look tight enough, and boiling liquid nitrogen from a leak could cause asphyxiation I imagine.