Slashdot Mirror
(Solar) Power to the Masses
D3 writes "This report on a solar power tower (pdf) looks extremely interesting. Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?" The NY Times has a good article on solar power in Japan.
Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world?
Great idea, but power simply can't be distributed over that great a distance.
To make up for losses due to resistance in wires, they up the voltage to absurd levels -- decreasing the current level, and, in the process, the voltage drop over a long distance. However, this can only be taken so far, and towers supplying electricity to the rest of the planet is way too far.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that the continental US is too wide for coast-to-coast power sharing (that is, power generated in, say, New York, can only be "shipped" as far west as Indiana, or so).
On the other hand, replace today's wires with some kind of high-current, high-temperature superconductor, and you're golden.