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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

The other problem not mentioned: Yellowstone is the middle of fricken nowhere.

Electricity is hard to send long distances and central planning projects have shown to be their own disasters time-and-time again through history. "This time around though" we have more established population centers so maybe we can pull it off? Not sure! If the power could be produced cheap enough, it might pay off to maintain the massive power grid to send electricity to population centers...

What would truly be revolutionary is phase change electricity storage mechanism! Imagine being able to "ship" electricity on conventional roads, or even in existing pipelines, much the way we do with hydrocarbons.

Batteries charge roughly at the same rate they discharge, making electric cars a PITA. A conventional automobile can be "charged up" with enough potential energy in 8 mins in what takes the fastest chargers 75mins.

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Wait, did you just claim centrally planned projects are disasters, and propose to use nationwide highway/pipeline network instead?

Yes! The subtle point being that our pipelines/highways already exist, and I'd love to shove something besides oil down the pipelines.

The point being, I think, that the highways were a centrally planned project.

... but Interstates did not exist a couple generations ago. They were a planned project, carried out recently enough that many of us still remember when they were not done yet. That project was started in the 50s, and completed in 1992.

I missed where the interstate highway system was a spontaneous, uncoordinated series of projects that individual states and private entities took up on their own!

This is not as intractable as you might initially think [0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation

"Imagine being able to "ship" electricity on conventional roads, or even in existing pipelines, much the way we do with hydrocarbons."

That's why people get excited about Hydrogen. Surplus energy can be used to produce H2 via electrolysis. The process is pretty inefficient, but that perhaps doesn't matter if the energy source is abundant enough.

However, the infrastructure required for H2 distribution would be expensive. You can't use existing gas pipelines. It's probably more practical and affordable to just build long-distance HVDC connectors to export 6GW of energy.

You can also produce hydrocarbons from water and air and use the existing infrastructure and vehicles.

H2 can be converted to DME (dimethylether) and then transported like LPG. DME is a much cleaner diesel replacement.

We know how to transmit power over long distance with 10-15% loss.

dont say it

I'm ignorant, what does phase change have to do with energy storage?

Matter phase changes either require or release energy. For example, liquifying ice requires energy (which is why ice makes your drink cold when it melts), and the energy used to transform liquid water into steam can be reclaimed as useful work in steam engines. Phase change is one potential storage mechanism for, say, excess electricity production.

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

Maybe someday we'll have steam pipelines instead of gas pipelines?

It comes down to efficiency of transfer. I've heard of steam being used for power in machine shops and for heat in cities. I doubt the efficiencies make sense over much distance.

I used water as only an example. I don't think steam is generally thought of in terms of energy storage.

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