Wind-fuelled 'supergrid' offers clean power to Europe

5,000-mile network could cut entire continent's carbon output by a
quarter
By Paul Rodgers
Published: 25 November 2007

"An audacious proposal to build a 5,000-mile electricity supergrid,
stretching from Siberia to Morocco and Egypt to Iceland, would slash
Europe's CO2 emissions by a quarter, scientists say.
The scheme would make the use of renewable energy, particularly wind
power, so reliable and cheap that it would replace fossil fuels on an
unprecedented scale, serving 1.1 billion people in 50 countries.
Europe's 1.25bn tons of annual CO2 output from electricity generation
would be wiped out. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines, up to
100 times as long as the alternating current (AC) cables carried by
the National Grid's pylons, would form the system's main arteries.
While AC lines are the international standard, they leak energy. HVDC
lines are three times as efficient, making them cost effective over
distances above 50 miles.
Building the supergrid would require an investment of ¿$80bn (£40bn),
plus the cost of the wind turbines - a fraction of the EURO 1 trillion the
EU expects to pay for a 20 per cent reduction of its carbon footprint
by 2020. The average price of the electricity generated would be just
4.6 euro cents per kWh, competitive with today's rates, which are
likely to rise as fossil fuels run out."

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3194088.ece
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