Comment on TIL the cost of transporting energy around
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 13 hours agoPower transmission is hard.
The wire, the complex components, keeping it all in phase and steady and not exploding, the maintenance…
I cannot emphasize this enough. People tend to trivialize this when talking about remote production, but moving electricity long-distance is basically the hardest part. And pipes really are dead-simple in comparison.
It’s also why local production is so appealing.
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 13 hours ago
I was aware conceptually that it’s really complicated, but where are the costs going? Is this due to labor costs? Material costs? something else? What makes it so expensive to build and to operate, especially compared to pipelines.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I am not a power engineer, but I do know the capital costs for the wire and components all along the way is massive. They’re complicated, and they require a lot of expensive (and probably carbon intensive) materials.
Basic physics dictates it. Its more complicated than small scale DC/AC current with negligible transmission time you’re likely thinking of.
Maintenance is a pain, too. HV wires (especially the crazy DC ones) are extremely, extremely dangerous and basically can’t be near anything.
I’m not sure about installation labor costs vs a pipeline though.
chocrates@piefed.world 11 hours ago
They are also pretty lossy too right? Some percentage of the energy you are moving is lost to heat
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Yes, though that’s true of other methods.
Another big factor is that its very inconvenient to buffer vs tanks on either end, for transmission breaks that take time to repair, uneven energy supply/demand and stuff like that. Or even just capacitance.
A big old tank of oil on either end is cheap.
I’m not trying to shill for hydrogen or anything (I don’t like hydrogen), but this is definitely an issue.