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Comment by wernerb | Hacker News Reader

These cables can run much hotter and so have better capacity. BUT there is a big downside. Because they run so hot (you can grill a burger on them with ease), there will be a lot more resistance resulting in net losses. Also fun, because they can run so hot when rain hits it literally sizzles and cooks resulting in extra noise.

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Wow! A random datasheet[0] says:

"Max.allowable continuous operating temp: 175 C", and shows a current capacity plot from 55C to 175C. That's 350 F, definitely enough to grill burger.

Also, I was curious about power loss - for that one cable I found, it's 0.25816 Ω/km @ 660 amp, which comes out to 181 kilowatt of loss (150 average US homes) per mile of the line (and probably double that for second wire). That's a lot of loss!

[0] https://www.midalcable.com/storage/products/accc/accc-data-s...

Something that everyone is going to need to get used to is that with carbon-free, cost-free primary inputs the emphasis on efficiency that we have historically known is going to disappear. It fundamentally does not matter if something that we need to make the system work loses a few percent of the energy.

It does when the grid is running on batteries for extended periods of time. I guess it just comes down to what is cheaper between x% more batteries and y% larger conductors.

If the solar is remote and the batteries are near the load though you don’t need any more batteries in this situation, just more panels.

That doesn't sound free.

Colocating batteries with panels should be more cost effective as they can avoid the DC-AC-DC conversion while using half as many inverters as 2 separate installations.

That's not new at all - we already accept ICE's losing a ton of energy as heat, we accepted incandescent light bulbs losing a ton of energy as heat, etc.

It's more like we have to resist calls for everything to use the minimum amount of energy possible when the relevant thing really is minimising externalities.

Isn't that going to be a fire hazard as well?

They already need to be kept away from vegetation to prevent faults.

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