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Originally Posted by roflwaffle
Over thousands of square miles they are, at least AFAIK. High voltage AC can carry 2GW over 400 miles no sweat, I've never heard of clouds w/o any increase in wind covering 160,000 square miles, but if you've got some convincing evidence it can feel free to share.
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I am not a meteorologist and I am not going to debate weather, but I have experienced periods of about a week many times when it is cloudy/raining and the wind still comes and goes. Thats all I have to say about that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roflwaffle
That depends on the grid makeup AFAIK. What I will say is that peak grid capacity isn't what matters. It's the cost/kWh generated that we should look at when comparing sources. We also need to include the externalized costs of conventional sources in order to accurately compare different grid mixtures.
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Hell Yeah it matters. Right now we have a grid that is capable of supporting our worst summer and our worst winter day of the year, every year, if you want to compare apples to apples then your grid has to meet peak demand every day all day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roflwaffle
Based on what I've read new wind is cheaper/kWh than new nuclear, although not by a lot, something around ~3c/kWh compared to ~4c/kWh. This is from the cost figures of Florida's two AP1000's, fuel cost percentage from the NEI, and inflation adjusted non-fuel operating costs from "An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant
Operating Costs: A 1995 Update".
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From what I have seen 4 cents represents the low end of a very large range for the cost of wind power. I have not seen a study from a credible source showing wind to be cheaper than nuclear. One thing to note is these studies are hugely dependent on the interest rate that you borrow against to build your project. I would like to drill down on an actual economic analysis of wind cost but have not been able to find it.
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Originally Posted by roflwaffle
Problems on one side of an interconnect usually don't manifest themselves on the other side, and buried lines tend not to present many problems over their lifetime. In fact, based on what I've read most of the trouble we've had recently is due to degregulating the electricty market with a grid that wasn't designed for deregulated operation. Given the track record of a grid designed for what it does I doubt this would be a problem. That said, if the entire region being supplied by a high power HVDC line/s goes dark I don't think there would be any question as to what line/s are the source of the problem.
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A HVDC transmission line is not like your everyday AC line, you need an inverting station to get the DC back to AC. I am not an expert but I don’t think you are not going to have them all over the place, it is more likely HVDC will be used for long distance bulk transport and fed from and distributing into a high voltage AC network. Also we won’t be burying lines.
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Originally Posted by roflwaffle
Um, the U.S. Can't defend it's border from immigrants because the U.S. doesn't really care to defend it's border from immigrants.
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Immigrants is really irrelevant to the issue, the issue is can a 5000 mile power line be protected from a terrorist attack? Its relevant because you have tied your energy security to a power line.