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3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#3

Post by defrost »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I wonder if the higher likelyhood of a 'hostile nation’ breaking the link is more of an issue now and makes the project less likely, protecting a 3800 km undersea cable is presumably impossible.

Globally there are other issues:

    The idea of intercontinental renewable energy is not limited to Europe. On the other side of the world, a company called SunCable has charted a path for an 4,300-km-long undersea cable that would deliver solar power from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore, dodging the islands of Indonesia along the way.

    SunCable’s experience has been rocky; the company entered and exited administration this year over a dispute between its financial backers.
This is back on again, apparently*, but Risk is a big factor - SunCable want to cross multiple fault lines through a notorious volcanic zone which introduces the "backup in event of failure" issues and magnifies the problem of single cable dependance.

* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-05/tas-sun-cable-bell-ba...

Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#4

Post by dave4420 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I wonder if the higher likelyhood of a 'hostile nation’ breaking the link is more of an issue now and makes the project less likely, protecting a 3800 km undersea cable is presumably impossible.

If it is going to be buried 700m under the sea floor, then it won’t get accidentally severed by ships anchors, at least.

Was Nord Stream buried?

Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#5

Post by helsinkiandrew »

dave4420 wrote: post #4
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I wonder if the higher likelyhood of a 'hostile nation’ breaking the link is more of an issue now and makes the project less likely, protecting a 3800 km undersea cable is presumably impossible.

If it is going to be buried 700m under the sea floor, then it won’t get accidentally severed by ships anchors, at least. Was Nord Stream buried?

> Was Nord Stream buried?

No, and neither is XLinks - the cable will be layed in sea upto 700M deep not 700M below the sea floor as the article stated.

Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#7

Post by api »

defrost wrote: post #3
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I wonder if the higher likelyhood of a 'hostile nation’ breaking the link is more of an issue now and makes the project less likely, protecting a 3800 km undersea cable is presumably impossible.

Globally there are other issues: The idea of intercontinental renewable energy is not limited to Europe. On the other side of the world, a company called SunCable has charted a path for an 4,300-km-long undersea cable that would deliver solar power from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore, dodging the islands of Indonesia along the way. SunCable’s experience has been rocky; the company entered and exited admi…

I don’t think the idea is viable without a huge multinational simultaneous effort to build enough of it for there to be a lot of redundancy, and then an equally deep commitment to mutual defense of the infrastructure.

Not going to happen in today’s decoupling world. Batteries are a better investment.

Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#9

Post by ReactiveJelly »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I wonder if the higher likelyhood of a 'hostile nation’ breaking the link is more of an issue now and makes the project less likely, protecting a 3800 km undersea cable is presumably impossible.

I wonder how many gigawatts / terawatts a cable would need to carry before you can fit gunship patrols into the budget.

Re: 3,800-km cable offers glimpse of a global power grid

#10

Post by Erratic6576 »

Isn’t is simpler to pump the energy into a market pool connecting Morocco to the Iberian peninsula and connecting Britain to mainland Europe through the tunnel with France?

Creating a cable to power a place thousands of km away seems rather inefficient compared to connecting the power stations to a grid of cables which already exists.

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