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Worldwide power grid with glass insulated HVDC cables
Moving electricity around the world has huge financial and environmental benefits. Unfortunately, current power transmission systems are both lossy and expensive to build. This post explores an alternative design for cables to make undersea power transmission substantially cheaper.
The cable is then quenched in water to surface harden it, before it moves out of the back of the ship and falls to the ocean floor over a length of many kilometers (due to very low curve radius). To build this cable, 80 mm diameter, at a sluggish walking pace, would require a massive 40,000 tons of sand (silicon dioxide), so it probably makes sense to resupply the manufacturing ship every ~week whilst it is producing, allowing a smaller ‘furnace’ boat to be used. If the cable cannot survive those forces, the whole manufacturing system must be kept at constant height despite the ship rising and falling, which adds significant complexity and cost.
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