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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

In theory moving electricity 1,000 miles can have minimal transmission losses. Unfortunately California’s grid lacks the infrastructure to support significant long distance transmission.

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Sort-of. Transmission for HTHV lines (745kV single circuit cost $2.5-4M/mile with ~1% line loss; 345kV single circuit will cost ~$1.5-2M/mile with 5% line loss). For 1MW solar capacity you typically need about 4 acres. 100GW of solar would require 400k acres of land - and come at a cost of about $3 billion for the panels, not to mention the price of land or entitlements. Add in cost of substations and transmission you’re realistically looking at a $10+ Billion project. Which while doable would not profitability compete with other grid solutions. If panels drop by another 30% and power densities improve the grid will naturally tend towards that direction.

The US already has 121GW of solar installed the majority of that being large scale Grid solar. Which shows the transition is already happening at current prices.

A major part of that equation is there is a lot of land in the US available for under 2,000$/acre, however spending more is a tradeoff to reduce the need for longer distance power transmission etc.

PS: 10B for 100GW at 30% capacity factor for 20 years is 10,000,000,000$ / (100,000,000kW * 0.3 * 24h * 365 * 20) or 0.2c/kWh ignoring interest. So, I think you messed up your estimate somewhere if you think that’s uncompetitive.

If I were a billionaire, I could spend 10 billion project with a massive reduction in fossil fuel emissions.

Or I could spend over 4 times as much to buy a social media site.

Decisions, decisions.

One sounds like an expense, the other sounds like a transfer from one pocket to the other while allowing for shifting the public perception any way desired while retaining unparalleled access to capital.

If only we weren't spending $105 billion high speed rail no one will use, we might have been able to scrounge up $10 billion for solar.

California already has some big long-distance transmission lines.

Path 65 (aka Pacific DC Intertie) is a 3.1 GW line connecting the hydroelectric dams of Washington and Oregon to Los Angeles.

Path 27 (Intermountain DC) is a 2.4 GW line connecting LA to a big-ass coal plant in Utah that is being shifted to wind+solar+natgas+hydrogen.

Path 66 is a set of AC lines that combine for 4.8 GW from Oregon to Southern California.

Yes, but not of the places you listed are where you would put solar to supply California. If anything they will likely be used to move excess solar power out of California.

The map of solar production shows a compromise between building it in the most efficient place vs where demand and incentives is located. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Stat...

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