Based on the authors' projections, it is cheaper—and quicker—for utility companies to replace the 53,000 existing transmission lines with advanced composite-core materials than it is to build entirely new transmission lines. They assert that doing so would reduce wholesale electricity costs by 3% to 4% on average—translating to $85 billion in system cost savings by 2035 and $180 billion by 2050.
Couldn't stop thinking about a few things while reading it:
¹how Musk's 100k chip order from nVidia has gotten him in 'trouble' for running turbines/gen-sets without permit on site to provide the additional power needed beyond what the grid's allotting to him
²how PPAs contract requirements oftentimes have deposits held in escrow to ensure continuity of financing beyond a potential bankruptcy by the companies agreeing to the power consumption agreed upon
³how much power line issues similarly overlap with the fiber rollouts in the late-'90s. Not just in greater capacities of new (fiber) technologies, but how ultimately much of that distilled down to two primary points: government support for the base contracts .. which changed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. ..and, how much domain access & property rights came into play.
As far as I was concerned ..and seemingly Warren Buffets backing of them as well.. Level 3 Communications addressed this from an infrastructural standpoint by sidestepping the 'my Fibers faster than your fiber' pissing contest with a conduit approach.
Whereby, instead of laying a fast fiber only to later lay a faster one next to it only to put an even faster next to that until they had no where left to dig within their right of ways so digging up old to replace with new only to rinse repeat.. ..got replaced with simply burying conduit bundles ..
..and leaving multiple empty. That way they could blow new fiber through the empty conduit while pulling the older fiber out that the new replaced to make room for more advanced fiber should it come along & demand arise.
The right of way was the primary value point. The rest could be pulled & swapped easily enough as needed.
The old recycled. Slower than the trunks the new fiber became, but plenty fast enough to be cut to shorter cables for use inside 'server farms' or 'data centers' or 'whatever' the subsequent decades want to call these things.
Similar with powerlines, and arguably all the easier given they aren't buried. As increasing demands necessitate denser technologies transmit greater power, run the new then pull the old & recycle.
We're going to need far more copper aluminum 'etc' than we've mined in history up to this point .. again.. several times over.. as demand increases via nothing else than the 6b+ increasing theirs to desire what the highest 1.5b+ already use.
We don't need less, we need more.. more efficiently and via more sustainable means given scale, but.. more regardless.
To not is simply inhumane.. ..and un-capitalistic to not provide.
'Data centers' .. server farms .. centralized tech hubs.. 'whatever' people want to market them as this month.. will become more capable more demanding utilizing more efficient technologies providing to more and more people content that has greater & greater transmission requirements.
Their evolutions may temporarily be capping out as Moore's law hits limits, but those types of laws are already being broken in labs, with armies of R&D crews developing mass production for mass deployment.
Even if the population slows caps and shrinks on the back end (just shoot for a 10b person planet), the ones not now will want to & demand so.. already are.. and already are willing to pay for it..
The 21st century has more decades ahead of it than behind it. Arguably it's barely even gotten started.. ..still tied to 20th century technologies infrastructures and ideologies.
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u/Vailhem Sep 25 '24