Power Transmission Losses

[SmallIsPower]

I'm one of the people in my city researching renewable energy ideas, and it seems as if the length of power lines is less of a factor in planning electrical systems is less of a factor than in years past including sites about a global power grid.

 

Corporations, of course, do have ulterior motives to claim success for technologies that don't work or are speculative on their sites, cost, level of development etc.?

[imp]

I'm one of the people in my city researching renewable energy ideas, and it seems as if the length of power lines is less of a factor in planning electrical systems is less of a factor than in years past including sites about a global power grid.

 

Corporations, of course, do have ulterior motives to claim success for technologies that don't work or are speculative on their sites, cost, level of development etc.?

 

Please explain how renewable energy concepts relate to electrical power lines. I suspect the length of power lines is less important now to the owners, as higher, and therefore more efficient, voltages have been successfully used, as well as direct current transmission instead of alternating, which eliminates a-c losses.

 

How would a global power grid span continent-to-continent, with thousands of miles of ocean between? Which ever-warring factions would own it, were it possible? imp

[dodd]

energy losses (including power line losses )can be reduced bygenrating power near the load itself.

[imp]

energy losses (including power line losses )can be reduced bygenrating power near the load itself.

 

This is very true. Generating installations using hydro-power have in the past necessarily been built at relatively long distances from the use-point, as populated areas are rarely near the chasms used to dam rivers.

 

Then too, politics come into play. Hoover Dam, for example, sent it's power output to the Los Angeles Basin for 50 years, rather than populated areas closer, for treaty reasons.

 

As public loathing of nuclear plants has reached fever pitch, new installations of that type have been built far from the end-users, if at all. imp

[iNow]

As public loathing of nuclear plants has reached fever pitch, new installations of that type have been built far from the end-users, if at all.

 

I find that to be some rather curious rhetoric, if only because, from my perspective, this "loathing" has actually been on the decline in recent years.

 

Can you please elaborate?

[thedarkshade]

As public loathing of nuclear plants has reached fever pitch, new installations of that type have been built far from the end-users, if at all. imp

It is actually the misuse that might be the reason for this loathe!