Comment on TIL the cost of transporting energy around

JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• dariusj18@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No, DC is for long distances

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  • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah I started reading up on it more once I got thinking about it. Looks like AC was easier in the past, which is probably why we’re standardized on it for local grids

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    • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      yeah, AC won during the current wars in 1900, mostly because efficient transformers were only available for AC at the time.

      nowadays DC is often used for high-power long-distance transport though.

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      • sj_zero ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago federation: posted

        interesting piece of trivia: In 2003ish, there was a major power outage across the northwestern US and much of eastern Canada. One major issue was that the grid became desynchronized so resynchronizing was a major problem they had to solve to bring the grid back up. The province of Quebec uses high voltage DC lines (and also massive amounts of hydroelectric power, but that's a conversation for another day) so they didn't have that same problem and had returned their power to normal long before the rest of the region.