Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

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Judging by this population density map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Canada_P...

And the ever-useful "The True Size Of…": https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTU1OTcwMjU.MTI5MjQ...

I think you're overstating the difficulty given that population distribution.

And those two large splotches on the map representing Calgary and Edmonton and with most of the population pretty close by, they're only 282.6 km apart.

A 10cm^2 cross section of aluminium between them would have a resistance of 7.3 Ω, and even when bought from the first random supplier I found on Amazon that would only cost about €14m:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=resistivity+aluminium+%...

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Aluminium-Square-Solid-Material-S...

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=282.6+kilometers+*+€5%2...

It would be about 12% of that price, €1.7m, if bought at bulk rates: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=282.6+kilometers+*+10cm...

At 1e6 V, 12.7 GW is 12.7 kA; I^2R losses over a 7.3 Ω link for that current is 1.18 GW: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%2812700+amperes%29%5E2...

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But even without any of that, there is one very important point you've overlooked:

Alberta has already got a power grid.

Appreciate the response but I'll be honest I don't understand what point you are making.

My only point is that Alberta being larger than Germany means its more expensive to deliver power to all its various small towns distributed around the province.

That seems pretty tautologically correct to me given that power lines have a cost and must be constantly maintained and built to support new power demands.

I'm unsure about what the cross section of aluminum has to do with the size of a province, but i'm willing to learn:)

Run a simple thought experiment. Would it be easier to deliver power 100 meters or 100 km's? That's what we are debating here.

> Run a simple thought experiment. Would it be easier to deliver power 100 meters or 100 km's? That's what we are debating here.

What you're debating is the cost of using a grid that already exists and is already in use.

> I'm unsure about what the cross section of aluminum has to do with the size of a province,

The answer is right there in the same post. Multiply them together to find out how much material you need (and by extension cost); likewise resistive losses.

The material costs for making an extremely efficient grid are trivial compared to everything else involved in the supply of energy that already exists and has already connected all those "various small towns distributed around the province".

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Also, I demonstrated with my maps that if you put a copy of the German borders around the Calgary-Edmonton conurbation, you'd get almost the entire population of Alberta, so your stat is misleading.

We currently transport already energy from big producers to small towns left and right.

Solar Energy reduces the load of the grid because the renewable energy will be consumed locally first. This puts less strain on it.

But you will still need to maintain a grid that's sized to handle situations when there's no solar.

The grid which already exists because it was built before solar was interesting.

The grid which connects the Suncor Fort Hills mine in Alberta to Tijuana in Mexico.

Even if you want to expand that grid to the level of everyone getting their winter midnight electricity from the midsummer sun on the opposite side of the planet, the material element of the "electric highway" isn't what stops it, it has a low cost compared to the last-mile stuff that already exists.

I already have a grid which handles this situation. I'm lost on what your issue is with the grid?

The biggest issue in germany regarding grid and renewable is a distance of 800km between north germany which has a lot of wind and south germany which has a lot of solar.

Diverge it a little bit better and no issues

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