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High-Temp Superconductors To Connect Power Grids

Posted by timothy on from the what've-y'-got-t'-swop? dept.

physburn writes "Somewhere in a triangle between Roswell (UFO) NM, Albuquerque (Left Turn) NM, and Amarillo (Do you know the way?) TX, a 22.5 square mile triangle of High Temperature Superconductor pipeline is to be built. Each leg of the triangle can carry 5GW of electricity. The purpose to load-balance and sell electricity between America's three power grids. Previously the Eastern Grid, Western Grid and Texan Grid have been separate, preventing cheap electricity being sold from one end of America to the other. The Tres Amiga Superstation, as it is to be called, will finally connect the three grids. The superstation is also designed to link renewable solar and wind power in the grids, and is to use HTS wire from American Superconductor. Some 23 years after its invention, today HTS comes of age. "

6 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Four words: by Pollux · · Score: 0, Troll

    Central Point of Failure.

    Attention terrorists: we have a new target to aim for.

    1. Re:Four words: by dunkelfalke · · Score: 0, Troll

      Yeah. And the only reason the terrorists haven't done anything yet is the sheer amount of available targets - so many that they cannot decide which one to aim for first :rolleyes

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    2. Re:Four words: by localman57 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Except not really, since all three grids are perfectly capable of running independently.

      You must be new here. Under the current system a single point of failure during peak-usage conditions has been shown to occasionally cascade into a region-wide failure. This has happened on both the east coast / midwest / canada, and in the west. I wonder if this new interconnect will allow even more of this behavior.

  2. Re:Five jiggawatts?! by swanzilla · · Score: 0, Troll

    I believe the 2nd-gen machines run on mere garbage

    --
    0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
  3. Re:I love slashdot. by craklyn · · Score: 0, Troll

    But how much energy is 5 GW in houses supplied with electricity?

  4. Re:blackouts by vlm · · Score: 0, Troll

    Texas is currently (as of when I checked the page) using 35.3 GW.

    Hmm OK. My BS meter is kind of tingling... its possible, but for 25 million TX citizens, plus or minus some illegals, that's like 1500 watts average on a cool weekday midday... Ya'll have a lot of aluminum refineries down there on the ranch?

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger