Re: Wind-fuelled 'supergrid' offers clean power to Europe
- From: Growl <growl10@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:21:27 -0800 (PST)
On Nov 25, 3:09 am, xnich...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
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
100 times as long? Not unless they use superconducting cables.
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.
50 miles? More like 200. Even more if the cost of DC transformers
(i.e., inverters) are included.
Power line losses are from cable resistance and corona. Resistive
losses are essentially the same fro DC as AC. Above 250,000 volts,
corona losses dominate. AC losses are higher then DC. Probably on the
order of 20%. but I am not sure.
Building the supergrid would require an investment of ¿$80bn (£40bn),
Is this 80 billion American or European? A very large difference. In
any event, it is a marketing WAG, not associated with the actual cost.
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
How would extracting this much energy affect the weather patterns? A
slight shift in the Jet Stream could change the location where the
windmills should be constructed. It could also alter agriculture
production.
.
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