China's MILLION VOLT Energy Superhighway
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2020
- Smart grids delivering renewable energy across continents will be a crucial advance, but they will also require extremely long electricity transmission distances. Our existing power lines are becoming more and more inefficient as those distances grow. China is tackling the issue by switching from AC to DC power and ramping up the output to a truly eye-watering 1.1 million volts. An environmental breakthrough or a bid for global energy domination?
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Research Links
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MIT Article
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ElectroBoom
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Meanwhile in Australia, our energy market regulator is too bogged down in red-tape and corruption to adapt the grid for renewables. I suspect fossil fuel lobbying has something to do with that.
You Aussies need to feed your politicians and fossil fuel industry bosses to the freaking sharks (along with the people who put them in power).
With the vast thorium reserves available in your country and the potential for Solar energy, it's a crime to keep burning coal (and mining it for export).
It ain't all bad. There is the giant solar farms being built in the top end.
Oh wait... they're funded by Asian companies and governments to power Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
@@Goreuncle It's a crime to be mining it, even worse exporting it. You add to the atmospheric load of CO₂ emissions not just the place that burns it, but the fuel cost of getting it there.
The fossil carbon lobby, world wide, knows that what can REALLY put them out of business is nuclear power. It's a pity so many of my fellow-lefties Do Not Get It.
@@MrZoomah Even in Australia, solar power demands storage or gas turbine backup. Usually gas. Elon Musk's offerings are puny compared with SE Australia's wind farm capacity and power troughs. See them at Anero.id
25 years ago, when I was working on gathering facts on transmission in Asia, there were several HVDC transmission lines already in use. At one time EPRI was experimenting with transmission lines of 1300 KV. I couldn't find any reason why the Chinese shouldn't be building 1100 KV-DC lines in Yunnan or Xinjiang or elsewhere, as line losses are less than AC. Spending $200-300 billions in infrastructure improvement is way better than wasting $6 trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The oil seller need the oil/
Depends who's paying you
South Africa was doing HVDC over 40y ago. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahora_Bassa_(HVDC)
@@shaunparsons3659 Yup; but now the state isn't allowed to do anything grand or even to allow others to do it for them so that we can keep making the apartheid criminals look good.
DC is not what it is cracked up to be in the video. You cannot put branches on DC. DC is pt A to pt. B and C cannot connect. It is why you can run giant DC cables between regions as everyone around the world has been doing for many many decades before the Chinese decided to join in and morons like this host jumped on board... One aspect of DC he did NOT cover is that running DC underground or under rivers/oceans is VASTLY easier to do than with AC...
Nice to have a civil channel on TH-cam from time to time.
Search "cruising the cut" for overwhelming intense civility.
it reminds me of a thomas the tank engine story
Meh! He could have left out the biased commentary on The Chinese government. I dont see another country is trying as hard as they for their people. That cap at the beginning about the Belt and road nearly got him turned off.
I absolutely love how informative and structured your videos are, free of unwanted shenanigans so many channels put into their videos. One of my favourite channels on YT. Liked and subscribed. Cheers bud!
Another issue with AC (especially very high voltage) is unwanted induction on neighboring structures like pipelines and antennas.
We placed coils of wire in the fiberglass roof of a barn that was near a high tension line. It was enough to light LED lamps in the building to avoid having to run power out to that building LOL
I worked with cables that run long distance in the past. They would pick up immense electrical charges from running parallel or even at some angle to high voltage power lines. The capacitive and inductive losses on power lines are very very high.
@@KlodFather
I heard that's illegal here and people were charged with power theft, but they got a light sentence.
@@Ted...youtubee - There have been some people in authority that would like to make it illegal, but its a mixed bag and subject to the interpretation of the judge. Receiving signals out of the air are legal, and this is just a radio receiver operating at very low frequency. If you are not tapping or doing anything with their transmission lines, its a very sketchy and shaky charge
Wasnt the other issue with dc the 15 stacks of wires on each telephone pole?
i.pinimg.com/736x/f5/7b/e5/f57be5959f6dd344623a4ebde85e6095--telephone-line-wire.jpg
Probably another reason people didn't have an issue with smokestacks--they couldn't see them past the wads of wires 😋
You did a shout out to Electro Boom!!!! One of the funniest ways to learn about about electricty.
I did not know that DC could be sent over long distances more efficiently than AC. Cool!
It has been known for a long time; the losses for an AC system for the same current is higher because the AC sees a higher effective resistance. Today because of power electronics, we can have DC voltages raised and lowered with relative ease.
Yes me neither
ElectroBoom made a video on that very topic 2 years ago: th-cam.com/video/DFQG9kuXSxg/w-d-xo.html
i just know a bit, but i don't care, i think it will never happen in Australia.
It cant. Why do you think dc has always been inferior to ac. Tesla was the man! Because money was wrong in their investment. And F Subasian Norstrom
Renewable energy is an economic weapon, and I support the renewable energy arms race.
Refraining from consuming - the antimatter of progress, packs the most invisible punch in the long run.
With you there Dorian.
You're gonna lose. China is the source of the neodymium for Giant Satanic Windmill's motors and generators, and the other rare earths for PV panels.
@@albertrogers2506, thanks Albert, I had heard that China had cornered the market in rare earth minerals, but China isn't the only place to find neodymium, it's found all around the world including the US. For some strange reason most wind turbines don't use permanent magnets when you'd have thought they'd be an integral part of one.
@@petergambier Are you sure of your statistics? I had the impression that the much lighter weight of a Nd, Fe, Boron magnet was indeed the widely preferred solution for wind abominations.
Sir, listening to you is like taking a good breath of clean fresh air from my countryside. Thank You.
The province of Manitoba (Canada) put a DC transmission system into use in the early 1970's to bring power to southern Manitoba (where the people are) from northern Manitoba (where the hydro power is). It's been in use for over 40 years, now.
Are there any criticals learnings from that to be shared?
@@willm5814 It was an early implementation, probably one of the first that worked well. They learned a lot of technical information. For instance, they built two lines, one for the return current. They since showed that a ground return works fine with DC, and now they feed both lines in the same direction and use ground returns. I'm sure the Chinese have access to all the reports. You can be sure the switching and rectification electronics have changed beyond recognition!
@@willm5814
Beavers don't chew down steel towers?
Technology has advanced so much in the last 40 that they likely upgraded at least once by now.
Yep. They have existed for some time in various parts of the world, but never at 1100kV. It's quite a step up even from 800kV
@@JustHaveaThink Yes, how do you build a 60 Hz 1 megavolt switch??
Wonderful presentation as usual!
I always enjoy your videos. Thanks for doing the research and bringing this topic to us!
As a humble subscriber all I can offer is my Ty for delivering the information.
That was an electrifying episode! 😅 good work as ever.
That has to be one hell of a diode to get that 1mil volts from ac to dc
You know, you're really a great source of more detailed info, and you have a great way of telling folks it's an oversimplification and here's where the totally technical info can be found.--and this technique strongly supports your over all thesis. Thanks for that.
... thx so much again for all the researchwork you put in your posts !
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I have lived in China for the last 3 years. I have never seen such infrastructure development. China simply operates on the next level. Awesome!
th-cam.com/video/dmSkZHnzeB0/w-d-xo.html
I was speaking to a guy who had lived there 10 years. He said the west is an obsolete joke. He also said to me not to believe a lot of the propaganda in the west. The government are working very hard to make it a good place to live for everyone and not just the rich - which I find incredibly easy to believe cos I live in Bulgaria, an ex communist country and OH BOY were we lied to in the west about the Soviet block...!!!
All my neighbours own their own home with no mortgage, most of them own a 2nd home in the countryside for the weekends and in a recent election over 50% fo people who were alive in communist times voted to return to communism. So the west REALLY likes to play up the evils of looking after your ordinary people...
@@piccalillipit9211 The Soviet Union was always ahead of everyone else in medicine and vaccines.
@@rivertwygzbed543 that's why there so few bad effects felt from the recent Sputnik vaccines or for that matter the Chinese Sinopharm.
Yeh, it’s next level because they don’t need anyone’s consent, not from local residents, not from any independent consortiums or organisations, not even from government agencies, whatever the central government says goes. No votes, no discussion, just get with the plan or go to jail, sorry I mean re-education centre. That’s like a complicated murder trial taking minutes instead of months. We can learn a lot from China but to act as though they are a role model of a nation is mind numbingly ignorant.
It’s very impressive how China is improving its renewable infrastructure. They have the right idea about investment in infrastructure projects during covid because these projects will improve its economy and when Covid is over they will be in line for a huge growth margin
so why is China building coal reactors every month lol
Just in time for their population to age and implode. They’ll make the West look like paradise.
Love your channel and how you present the information. Thank you. You are indeed a treasure.
Hsy thank you so much for the sharing yet another great informative vid thanks again
As soon as you mentioned FULL-BRIDGE RECTIFIER! I thought of Electroboom. Always good for a laugh and learning something interesting
Me: What's Electroboom?? Google, Google, Clickety Click.... Oh, I get it now ;)
Those are going to be some huge diodes in that rectifier
@@patrickmckowen2999
There is more than one device for each and yes, they are quite huge.
Look for
hockey puck rectifier
A very interesting thing has happened in about the last 10 years.
Semiconductors for quite high voltages and currents are on the market.
Some of these, mere mortals can afford.
The Electroboom 'Full Bridge Rectifier' is missing the 'wave' word.
it's ffffffuuuuuuuuullllllllll bridge rectifier not just simple rectifier
I’m having difficulty understanding why a power dam (Mekong example) would affect the availability of water downstream, except for the duration that the dam is being filled. . . what am I missing?
It doesn't. In fact it actually provides protection against floods by storing excess water and protection against draughts by releasing more water. There are over 50 dams on Mekong and its tributaries already with over 100 more planned in all these countries - China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar
The reason why some parts faced drought was because the lower Mekong basin had a really dry season
If they build a dam in very downstream in the mekong, then they will never have any water problem in downstream countries like cambodia. All these "water fights" arise because upstream countries are building dams but not downstream countries, so water goes straight to the sea for downstream coutries and is completely wasted. Same story in Ethiopia vs Egypt. Obviously it is more challenging to build a dam downstream due to the river being much wider and lack of river gorges, but say if for example cambodia built a dam right at the exit of the river from the flooded forest, they will not have problems of dry season leading to deforestation and habitat loss for its fisheries, and have a steady water supply too.
I suppose one aspect is that it increases water loss via evaporation if the dams are built with a reservoir of larger area than was before, of if the water is also used for irrigation, and there are other impacts such as reduction in population of fish etc ..
@@jwickerszh evaporation does exist, but the problem is always irrigation. you know... we have the water let's just use it, to the fuck downstream...
@@JavierAlbinarrate Yes, I mentioned it, but it's not necessary linked to the construction of a dam, ie: you could divert river water for irrigations without a dam, or you could have a dam without tapping into the reservoir for irrigation. So technically those are separate issues.
You are a breath of fresh air! You expose all sides of the issues with a nice even tempered presentation. Thank you.
People asked me how it feels when you stick your finger in an electrical outlet? To be honest, it Hertz.
@Marc Jackson only 60 times per second here and some countries its only 50 (Japan)
Watt did you say?? Is that even current, do you get all amped up from it?
Touching high voltage RF can kilohertz or just megahertz if you survive.
Bad puns always win my volt.
@Marc Jackson then its 120 here. lol
Bonjour!
Québec uses 735 000 volts lines to transmit hydroelectricity over thousands of km. I'm starting to understand the strategy. Fascinating topic thank you!
In that case, I believe it was done due to misaligned phases between the grids, and was done even when HVDC was less efficient. The HVDC solutions from the ‘70s involve some pretty wild vacuum tube stuff. Japan does this too to link its 60Hz and 50Hz regions together.
Back then to do it purely for efficiency purposes would have needed a really really long span of wire, possibly literally globe crossing or even longer.
But now the conversion process is efficient enough that it’s beginning to make sense for continent-spanning grids to avoid AC losses. But of course the bonus of not needing to sync the local AC grids still applies; for instance a potential future transatlantic one could sync the 50 and 60 Hz grids of Europe and NA, which could result in NA’s midday solar powering Europe’s evening peak and Europe’s midday solar powering NA’s morning peak.
Give Newfoundlanders some credit. A LOT if not most of the current in the highest voltage transmission lines comes from Labrador.
Canada has several HVDC longer transmission line systems of which one is being finished by a close friend and fellow engineer. These need to be long distance end to end systems with no branch offs along the route. Hence they span vast nearly uninhabited regions.
I was at CGE Peterborough when they were testing the rew high voltage DC air blast circuit breakers. They signaled with a siren because it was very load blast
Al Carlson - We EITs - engineers in training, were given a training field trip of CPL Calgary Power years ago. While walking into a HV switchyard an operator triggered an air circuit breaker above us....The supersonic explosion and arcing rattles the ribs in your ribcage. Several returning to the control room took a detour to the washroom as they had involuntarily peed their pants....
@@gtranquilla I remember the blast could be heard all over the plant which covered a whole block back in the 60's it employed over 5000 people Peterborough is called the electric-city to this day
Al retired
This channel never fails to deliver new and exciting information on emerging technologies and does it in layman's terms we can all understand. We thank your for that. I never realized that efficient transmission of DC electricity over long distances was even possible and now we find out it may be the next new thing in bringing green energy technologies to the next level.
Thanks again👍
Keep up the good work.😎
We often drive near these million-volt DC lines when off-roading in the desert. They make the eriest "crackling" sound.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
I don't believe you are driving by million volt DC lines in the US. I don't believe there are any million volt DC lines on the US. Seems you are talking about high voltage AC lines which is how power is transmitted in the US.
@@tompower5666 Looks like there is another one that starts in Utah: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_27
@@tompower5666 on the linked article it says it’s 500kV, but then as a result it’s total 1000kV (AKA 1MV) pole to pole. Which, yk, you can argue you should only care about the 500. But I can see why people would call it a million volts across the wires or somesuch.
Clearly, local generation of renewable power is the gold standard when practicable; Apart from transmission losses, anything like a wire or tube is vulnerable to any number of accidental, deliberate or natural events.
Not the least of which is to separate your people from self-sufficiency.
That's true, but the more cheaply we can access renewables the more we can mitigate climate change, and like any other network, this one can be made more resilient with more links.
That's a big geographic issue in China, in the populated ares there isn't much wind or sunshine
Sean Vikoren Self-sufficiency is mostly impractical since it is so much more efficient to do things in large scales. A farmer harvests twice the amount of potatoes per area than I did yesterday. Same goes for electricity. Edison wanted people to be „self-sufficient“ with power, because he wanted to sell a steam powered generator to each and every house. Tesla‘s power grid idea is so much more practical. And no, even being self sufficient in power and food terms does not shield you from a government exerting power. Unless you isolate yourself on an uninteresting island, that is.
True. And the way to minimize a temporary loss due to line failure is to distribute the flow over multiple lines located somewhat apart from each other.
Right now the western US has two large HVDC lines that bring power to SoCal. One from the hydro/wind generators in Oregon and another that brings (brought) coal energy from Utah. There is work underway to link those seperate lines at their northern ends which would create a loop. Break the line in one spot and power still flows along the remaining route.
The Utah/coal line is likely to be extended to Wyoming to southern Wyoming's excellent wind resource area.
Lovely, smooth narration.
Thanks, very informative and pleasant to watch
Infrastructure is key. It's the most underrated part of government of every greedy sihtpiece corrupt government person.
Well remember if the state proves it can do it people will want to have more state and then the private sector wont be able to make billions and billionaires... The state succeeding is an absolute threat to massive private wealth so they do their best to undermine it's effectiveness.
Exactly right but there is a solution. One American politician realizes this but the DNC shafted him. mtkass.blogspot.com/2018/01/wasted-effort.html
You don't know what you are talking about.
@@wlhgmk There is even a (then?) Republican woman who asserted in a book that "It's My Party Too" who will get no support from the fossil carbon trade that _likes_ the so-called renewables, 'cause they pose NO threat. Christine Todd Whitman seems to me the last EPA Administrator that recognises nuclear as the sfest and most dependable replacement for coal and Carbon Tetrahydride, methane, that is just about exactly as natural as pentane, hexane, heptane and octane, also known, with additives, as gasoline.
But infrastructure is difficult and expensive and thus even first world governments ignore it of late. It's not always corruption (though often it is). It is also incompetence and bad policy. See California for example.
I really like this channel. A treasure of interesting informations.
Glad you enjoy it! Much appreciated :-)
Excellent research and presentation. Thanks very much
Thanks for sharing this important story. The U.S. has been operating the 500KV Pacific Intertie for over 30 yrs, and has, according to a Google search, 20 HVDC lines of varying sizes. One reason you don't see more of these lines is they have been only cost effective over very long distances and at high load capacity because of the high cost of conversion/transfer gear. Glad to see there are many projects in the works globally.
Thanks Dave, so glad to hear that China is reducing coal use.
You can not believe Dave! he is an ideologist making money out of his religion science followers. Go to China and travel by train from Shanghai to Nanjing and you will find what air pollution is all about. They are the worst Coal fired powered stations imaginable. No precipitators, 200 years ago type of pollution, the soot is on everything inches thick everywhere, just mind boggling.
@Robbert James no doubt.
Lol so they say.
@@peterjohnstaples **Go to China and travel by train from Shanghai to Nanjing and you will find what air pollution is all about. **
Have you even travelled to China?
SO2 emissions are confirmed to be reduced in China by a whopping 75% by NASA!
**They are the worst Coal fired powered stations imaginable**
They replaced their old coal plants with much more advanced and efficient plants. The previous ones are small and inefficient.
Chinese coal plants are more efficient that US coal plants and is also more efficient
@Robbert James **In a pigs eye....there increasing air pollution exponentially .**
US has polluted more per capita while producing much of the world's goods.
With a hydro-electric dam the water flowing into the dam is the same as was flowing down the river before the dam was built. The water flowing out must be the same as that flowing in (it will average out over time as the level in the dam changes). So could it be that chronic water shortages downstream are caused by China diverting water for irrigation and consumption? Regarding high voltage being more efficient - true but not because the high voltage is required to "push the current down the wire". It's because (power transmitted) = (volts at the destination) x amps and (power lost) = (resistance of the transmission line) x (current squared). From that you can see that for given power doubling the voltage you halve the current and reduce losses by a factor of four. Another big advantage of DC is that you don't have to synchronise the frequency between the source of the power and its destination.
Dams block fish.
Totally agree, but you have to fill the dam first. That reduces water flow of the river down stream because no one totally cuts the flow until full. That starts to drain the water table down stream, because the river is still flowing. When the water flow over the dam is restored to its previous level, the water table down stream does not recover fully. Over a very long time of building up the stored water behind the dam, the water level is lowering the other side of it.
Now including water use, the water use down stream hasn't necessarily changed and that means the water table down stream is driven lower over that period, and as a result, the water in the down stream system stays lower permanently even with full flow return. Build more dams, you get lower flows, because there is less water in the down stream drainage basin as its stock is lower. That's how stocks and flows work. If you want to up the water level down stream, you need more water going over the dam than previously to build up the stock again. But that starts to empty the dam. Pop seasons on top of that, and you get water shortages downstream.
Averaging out flows over time reduces the rainy season floods downstream of the dams (maybe a good thing to avoid drowning), without the annual flood farmers have no irrigation. A planned flood each year would be helpful.
Higher voltage mean smaller current and thus only smaller cross section of conductor required and lower the power transmission cost.
AC is more easy to step up & step down of voltage where DC can't do.
@@alexng7583 did you watch the video? He said in the video they use AC to step up to high voltage then convert to DC and send a long distance and then back to AC and step the voltage down.
Great report and speech, learn many new things from this video, thank you.
Great information, thank you.
LADWP has a DC line that operates from 500,000VDC to 1,000,000VDC between southern Washington to LA since the early 70s.
“can supply 12 Gigawatts...” - that may sound like a lot, but it’s actually just barely enough to fully power a flux capacitor 10 times.
But how does it compare to a Tesla Y battery pack?
12 Gigawatts sounds like a lot but a dilthium warp core in every home would be a better solution.
@Brin Jenkins He did say 66 billion Kw hrs a year.
Brin Jenkins I agree, why don’t people just use a billion milli-feet like normal people
That's pretty substantial, considering Texas in a Heat Wave will peak @ ~ 70 Gw www.ercot.com/
Absolutely stunning information on this channel.
Thanks for the content and for not having commercials
I'd like to be optimistic and say this is the first step to a global energy sharing market, countries during the their day light hours share their excess energy with those in their night and then they in turn send their excess back when their day begins. Then we solve the down time problem of renewable energy on a global level...
Thorcon Power is actually working upon a reactor design, constructed shipyard fashion, that is perfectly capable of using the high temperature steam turbines that are built for coal burning, with a basic power size that drives 250 MW. They reckon, with rather well described plans, to beat coal on construction and fuel costs alone.
@Brin Jenkins To balance the winter inadequacies of winter solar they'd need connections to the Northern hemisphere.
@Brin Jenkins Thorium Conversion -> Thorcon Power. Visit thorconpower.com for a project that I might live long enough to see succeed. (I've passed my own sell-by date, three-score and ten, considerably)
They hold that it is possible for the"pure" LFTR design to be modified for production of bomb-grade ²³³U .
Their proposed MSR fuel is 80% thorium fluoride and 20% LEU containing 19.75% ²³⁵U. The incidental ²³⁹Pu will contribute fissile, and the neutron capture ²⁴⁰Pu is calculated to make a fuel salt that even if it were diverted would be dangerous and unattractive for bomb making.
@Brin Jenkins Your name is Welsh? My brother worked in Wales on what was then Europe's largest pumped storage plant, at Dinorwig, as "Chief Biologist". He had to find another job when Maggie Thatcher in a fit of Tory ideology sold off the People's property of the CEGB.
@Brin Jenkins considering the fact that there's probably about a 5-6 hour time difference between Western Europe and China, you could potentially receive solar energy from China from 2 AM to 10 AM, with peak output around 6 AM.
So combining Chinese solar power with local solar power would provide electricity from 2 AM to 6 PM.
And imaging combining such a system across multiple timezones so basically you could get a 24 hour system
I wish the US ran a UHVDC link from LA, to DC, passing through Chicago and Cleveland. Move some of that California Solar East for the Evening peak, and tap into great plains wind going east and west. Something big, like 1.1 million volts. I bet that would make us stronger than another aircraft carrier.
First time I hear an American propose to take out finances from the military to do something else with the money. It's none of my business as I am not American , but I find it curious this is so rare.
@@peut My statement is a bit counterintuitive. To have a strong military, you need a lot of money. To support the spending over the long term, you need a strong economy. Improving energy efficiency, and along with that, cost efficiency, helps support the economy, that supports the military. Also, with money, you can wield soft power. Being good at blowing stuff up isn't everything. And it's not like we don't already have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. The new USS Gerald Ford was like 13 billion, just to buy it. That doesn't include sailors, jets, or fuel and ordinance. I bet you can put up a lot of wire with that kind of money.
@@fjalics sorry, are you delusional about The Military Industrial Complex that President Kennedy was assassinated for being on the verge of exposing?
@@peut Americans make proposals like this all the time, but it's kind of futile because the Military Industrial Complex is so deeply entrenched, and Republicans never saw a weapon system they didn't want to spend more money on, even if the military doesn't want it.
@@fjalics ...and to have a strong economy, there's nothing like getting along with the neighbours. Makes everyone more prosperous and actually reduces the need for military expenditure.
Thank you for this episode. Very educational.
Interesting subject , first video watched , new subscriber too , keep up the good work
Those rectifiers must be huge!
Yes indeed en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#/media/File:Pole_2_Thyristor_Valve.jpg
@@klokoloko2114 Ye Gods! Actually, if they're using them for geothermal or even hydro power, I'll admire them.
press.siemens.com/global/en/feature/worlds-first-1100-kv-hvdc-transformer
I love the idea of a "green energy" arms race. If we don't want our foes to win, we better step up our game. Determining who is the "foe" is a matter of perspective. I myself, as an inhabitant of Earth, think reducing carbon emmisions by millions of tons is a good idea no matter who does it So.....if "we" don't like what "they" are doing, then "we" better hurry up. We are in a green energy arms race, dammit!!
Random guy: Noo you can't say that nuclear is sustainable energy!
France: *Haha green glow go brr*
What a great video, thank you.
Im glad to see your still "keeping up the fight", it can seem hard and pointless at time banging our head against those mad buggars walls. Well done sir.
I wonder why we couldn't have a trans African generation line stretching across the Sahara that could sell into Europe as well as supply the continent and beyond..
Politics
That's completley possible and would be a great thing, but most african governments are too corrupt and/or neck-deep in predatory international debt to undertake any large scale infrastructure projects.
Then a few terrorist attack on the line and Europe is without electricity... or local African government using this to blackmail Europe (at the top of the current "we send you more migrants" blackmailing)...
As an European I say No thanks! better we produce ourselves our own electricity.
@@shuaige3360 holy shit chill out with the racism there buddy
Europe and the US aint interrested in giving power to an entire continent that they wont be able to control once they rise out of poverty... and thats a fact.
Ramping up HVDC seems totally inevitable. Renewables keep sliding down the cost curve, creating the need, and modern technology is making it feasible.
Wow you’re channel has blown up
Much deserved !
Great analysis
Are there any problems with galvanic corrosion in the HVDC system? With alternating current, the reversal of flow tends to cancel these effects. What methods are used if needed with HVDC?
The transmission lines are mid air in 50m above ground. Where are they supposed to corrode?
@@fabianfeilcke7220 where they are has nothing to do with galvanic corrosion. It's the dc that is the issue.
For Galvanic corrosion you need a way for the Ions to move from the positive Line to the negative line. Usually this happens within water. On a Transmission Line there is no continuous water Layer between the lines.
@@fabianfeilcke7220 have you heard of black wire syndrome in battery systems?
@@stuartsmith945 No. But i assume it describes corrosion of battery modules? The creepage distance in Battery Systems is at best a couple of cm. In HVDC Systems is several meters. I worked in HVDC transmission plants for years and corrosion on the actual transmission lines was never an topic..
That is a real change in electricity generation. with this technology China will reduce or even eliminate The need for huge battery systems because if the power generated locally is more than what is needed instead of storing excess power generation it could sell it to locations even countries. The question is how do the generation areas get the power they need when there is no wind or sun? I guess they may need to store some of their excess in one or more of the power storage plans that are being developed.
there is just about always wind where they are building wind turbines. it is 2500meters above sea level so it is quite hectic.
for sun it is on and off. but usually more stable
Actually DC transmission simplifies battery integration.
You'r brilliant...thanks !!
Hope I shall ever become as professuoal and unbiased as you are.
Thank you for the inspirational point if view
Such a great channel. Always learning something new watching it :-)
I must say China is right regarding the stimulus package.
you are right
here in the states we give stimulus packaged like a shot in the ass thinking that it will trickle down or trickle out
it serves only for the purpose of the guy being reelected.
Let's face it we are just another third world country
@I Em Hoo I Iz they're more of a 2nd world country now
@@dosmundos3830 Democrats will do that to a country
@@lanesteele240 look whos president LMAO
@@lanesteele240 its really both groups of imperialistic manipulative idiocy disguised as concern for the american people. dems are a watered down version of the unforgiving stupidity of the right. both are conservative parties with their heads up their own ass. thats why any competent candidate is taken out of the race before the election comes to fruition no matter who they are. the DoD doesnt want someone who will speak up for people. it wants another puppet. and so we play the game of the "lesser of two evils" and make a joke of democracy in our very existence as a country.
Great video ! Very clear explanation. Thanks !
Love how you casually show multiple relatable distances so all can understand how long that line really is.
The idea of using DC lines at high-voltage in relation to renewables is not new. Checkout en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorNed which is already 12 year in operation (although at 450 kV, but bidirectional). I believe its mainly used to use over-capacity (during low demand or when renewables produce too much) in the Netherlands and pump up Norwegian artificial hydropower lakes, emptying it again during high demand. Using it essentially as a potential energy battery and compensating for the lack of height differences in the Netherlands.
I well remember the construction of the little known Pacific Intertie back in the mid 60's, completed in 1970. It is a massive high voltage DC line from Bonneville Dam to Sylmar in California that capitalizes on the difference in seasonal usage between SOCal and Oregon / Washington. Tower to tower voltages run in excess of a million volts. This made economic and energy sense even back then with the relatively crude technology compared to what we have today. Ultimately I can see it becoming practical on an ever smaller scale. For example I own 4 welders that use the same technology. They convert AC to DC, then back to AC at very high frequency... 10KC ... more or less, and that allows them to use a tiny transformer due to the difference in inductive reactance as a result of the high frequency... A 500 pound machine becomes an 80 pound machine. It also allows them to alter frequency on the fly to control the character of the output which is then rectified back to DC. The end user benefits greatly in having tremendous control, smoothness, and weld quality. Similar technology is being used on many smaller generators, allowing them to operate at different RPM depending on demand, for quietness and reduced fuel consumption. Of course there is also the grid tie inverter using some of the same technology to allow small power producers to synchronize and put power into the grid. I foresee the day when the transformer on your pole is an inverter instead of a transformer, and the local distribution network is DC instead of AC..it's a way off, but it is inevitable IMHO.
its not that far off, in australia you got all these battery storage from wind and solar so it might make technical sense to transmit dc and use either buck or inverters before sending the power to the consumer
Let's not ignore the health effects of fields radiated from AC transmission lines. There's another problem that goes away with DC.
I think you are correct, though still someway off.
AC distribution and pole transformer but DC in the home because compatible with batteries and solar and led lighting and easily 'inverted' for specific applications. But DC home wiring 'unintended short-circuits' are more flammable than AC (because they're not switching off every hundredth of a second) so every circuit needs a spark sensor as well as a current limiter. ..hi jim!
@@GaryGraham-sx4pm The ONLY reason for AC is the transformer.
Great channel. Thanks :-)
That was good info thank you..
The drive for sustainable non polluting energy and global political hegemony - are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals. When fossil fuels first came online and equipped the industrial revolution, countries like the UK (Coal) and USA (Oil) become global superpowers that jealously bullied everyone who dared to compete and risk catching up.
And here's another political loaded comment: If Scotland can invest in electricity transmission lines like this, then she can supply EU with more sustainable energy without drilling out new oil prospects or fracking our countryside.
Just out of curiosity, what energy would Scotland supply to the EU? Wind?
@@sergior. Yes. "Scotland's Marine Atlas: Information for The National Marine Plan." Tidal energy also plausible. A test bed in Skye generates more power than the grid is prepared to provide cables for.
By those who truly love Scotland's wild scenery -- the only thing that Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have that's better than England's Industrial Wind Power is an abomination, or as one person paraphrasing a Genesis story put it, "selling our birthright for a mess of wattage".
Shhh Stimpy&Ren , they will get all upset and nasty if you tell them the truth.
😳
@@sergior. indeed, have loads the further up north you go and Shetlands has some mean permanent currents between some of the islands, many permutations possible, but just not solar really
When it comes to issues related to human survival, I actually trust China more than US. Especially after seeing how US handled COVID. So I say, let's get behind initiatives that will benefit the planet! We are running out of time...
The Covid problem in the US is just Trumph. We have no plan and no leadership. Imagine if there was a war and DJT was our president. He's killing us.
Another great video! I learn something every time. Thanks Dave. Interesting that the Chinese are reducing the flow of the Mekong - I seem to remember reading somewhere that they're also removing tons of sand for construction from the Vietnamese portion of the river.
TBH not all dams need to restrict the flow downstream like that, it’s silly to build that many storage dams in a row. But it’s happened many times over the world...
亚热带的河水怎么影响热带雨林的水流量?你们应该考虑怎么留住水，修水库，停止围湖造田，退耕还湖，减少砍伐，而不是毫无意义的指责别人。
in Brazil the dams that are in the Amazon already send power in HVDC to the southeast, 2500 km away
I used to regard the CPC governing policies re their 1.4B as 'baffling' like yourself (as well as their foreign policy) until I took some time to look into these aspects beyond information presented the western MSM. I know better now.
Some of the stuff they do to actually improve people's lives is impossible to even think of in our countries.
They have serious water shortage in the north, and severe flooding in the South. So their solution is to build a 70 billion dollar water channel taking water across the country. I mean it's like they're playing Cities skylines and it's working so good for them
chinese? tianmen square massacre. if not. yeah the chinese gov is trying to be good with their anti corruption and green energy and tech advancements. but the country is riddled with corruption poverty and mistreatments of citizens. too authoritarian for some. weird country. croby capitalism mixed with communist authoritarianism.
@@TheMinimumPC haha cities skyline. basically teknocracy. or sometimes disaster. but yeah authoritarian state that treats workers well improves lives and economy is ideal. too bad power corrupts
Endjo First of all, there is no 'tianmen square massacre', it's just another color revolution planned by the CIA, and luckily it was failed~~~you are so brainwashed by the anti-China propaganda. And by the way, i am not trying to convince to you so you don't have to reply. Just as a real CHINESE, try to stop the lies spreading, rather than some outsiders who has never been to China but trying hard to destroy China and pull the Chinese people back to the real poverty again, then leave with that famous slogan: we bring you freedom and democracy~~~~
Here is my message: mind your own business and go fxxxxk yourself
@@user-dg8gc2zq4k i believe the chinese should mind their own god damn business. 3 gorges dam will collapse. china should stop the corruption. ghost cities so some chinese can get richer while the people in villages get poorer. stop putting poison in milk powder. stop trying to kill everyone that is not chinese
One day soon, energy will be free for everyone...
Robert Dewald: You have forgotten the cost for investment - money- and ressourcewise. 1 kWh PV is cheap ... if the sun shines. And no longer cheap if it has to be stored or transmitted.
And a world wide energy grid could only rely on politically stable conditions for a century all over the world. Safe nuclear power is closer than that type of political stability!
Agreed Robert, if by soon you mean the end of this century. Fusion power will be ubiquitous and very very cheap. It will be a game changer.
@@jamesmcgee7723 hopefully sooner
@@energieinfo21 not if everybody buys there own power plant and it is up to us to make it as inexpensive to buy as possible!!!
@@robertdewald8781 If you do not buy the devices but get the energy someone has bought devices and he will let you pay for it.
Energy will never be for free but you are right that it would be great to make it as inexpensive as possible with the least possible ecological and social impact.
Excellent stuff!
Great video thanks!
High voltage "Push" very interesting terminology, high voltage is to reduce the current component so that the losses reduced. there is growing popularity of using DC voltage transmission. DC transmission coupling equipment is quite expensive
Steve Spence ..... as is the fault interruption devices and switching!
I feel like I've been lied to? All this time I believed long distance electrical transmission had to be AC to punch through.
Yep me too, just got a tad smarter
AC does send out an electromagnetic field. I haven't had the time and materials to build something with which I could go to the nearest row of pylons, and detect the field or even steal a few milliwatts enough to light LEDs
@@albertrogers2506 you don't need much time. Just hold a long florescent tube up over your head.
Nice vid! Thanks!
Wow - never heard of HVDC advantages. Thank you
"alternating current only conducts along the surface of the wire" that is not true at 50 or 60 Hz (or the less common 16 2/3Hz, 120Hz or 130Hz) employed by transmission lines. The skin affect still exists but at those low frequencies it most certainly does not restrict conduction solely to the wire surface.
I think that there's a discernible effect, I agree that it is unlike high frequencies where one moves to wave guides, but at large amperage it's discernible.
@Dogphlap That's exactly what we were taught at school, skin effect begins to show at radio frequencies which is Litz wire is used for some RF inductors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litz_wire#:~:text=Litz%20wire%20is%20a%20special,up%20to%20about%201%20MHz.
@Dogphlap I do agree with you that he should have been more precise. However, there's a reason why high voltage cable manufacturers include the resistance per unit of length at 50 or 60 Hz in their datasheets. It's because engineers do have to take it into account.
current progress with renewable energy and electric transport systems probably world will be more peaceful place.
Renewable energy is rubbish. The only people who should be scared of nuclear are the fossil carbon trades. They have "outsourced" their fear to the idiot or perhaps Quisling forces in the Left.
albert rogers i am not against nuclear energy! I mean if there is no oil or gas dependence in the future there will be less wars. If every nation can produce own energy from sun or wind or nuclear there will be peace in the world
"Current progress" I see what you did there :D
@@rentoquando5249 Good! On account of the expense and capriciousness of renewables dependent upon the sun's vagaries, and what to paraphrase Blake I will call what are now the top predator upon quite scarce birds of prey Great Satanic Wind Mills. They seriously depress the value of nearby housing, which is anything within sight of them.
I am quite independently hostile to the idea of what are flatteringly called wind "turbines"
Brilliant! What a great video 👌
Thank you
Dave, I'm surprised you said damning the Mekong River will reduce the flow? I suppose that when the reservoir upstream of a damn fills it will reduce the flow until the reservoir fills but that is only a short period of time and the reduction is entirely dependent on the fill rate which is adjustable and can be made slow enough to be inconsequential. You know what goes in must come out for steady stead (i.e. no change in flow). Other than this minor instance I have never had another dispute with your research and really do appreciate the channel and your insight.
There is evaporative loss from dam lakes. e.g.
www.colorado.edu/today/2015/12/28/reservoir-evaporation-big-challenge-water-managers-west
news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-30/Qinghai-Tibet-Plateau-reports-annual-lake-evaporation-RK6aeIr5za/index.html
@@R.-. I stand corrected, I read the article and see that evaporation from the larger surface area that damns create is about 10% on the Colorado river. It makes sense. I stand corrected and again have no disagreements with Dave. Thanks for your correction R.
Countries not only use dams for power generation but also take water from the reservoirs for irrigation and for supply of growing population and industries. This is a frequent cause of conflict between neighboring countries along big river systems.
@@danielvivian3282 I respect you for acknowledging being corrected. There is however another problem with Hydro dams. Hydro systems often store water in the rainy season (summer) and release it in winter, and especially in colder regions. Agriculture requires the water in the summer and uses much less water in winter. The result is that the river down-stream is ower flowing in winter and is often totally drained downstream in summer. Those at the end of the river are often totally deprived of water in summer, resulting in huge crop losses and severe shortage of drinking water.
Another important aspect of building dams is that the silt load (which helps land downstream to be regularly enriched in minerals) gets dumped on the backside of the dam, so farmers downstream of the dam no longer have that "free" soil replenishment. To replace the river-carried minerals and nutrients farmers ultimately need to start using fertilizers. That silt load behind the dam grows ever larger, and its impractical to flush it out of the dam. Of course, this gives a dam a finite lifetime as well.
The thought of a central computer having control of ALL the Power is Disturbing
"Dont worry, this computer is unhackable" says every ambitious computing project that was put in charge of something far too important to centralize that much.
New Zealand has a bi directional HVDC line from the bottom of the south island where we have lots of hydro generation but not too many people, all the way up past Christchurch where there's a station to convert some back to AC and then north again across the cook strait to just north of wellington. It's only 300kV with a power rating of 1200MW though :P
Thank you!!! 😊
Thanks for the very educational video and for taking away the myth I had that the losses in the transmission of energy by direct current were much higher than those of alternating current.
It is. If the voltage is too low. HVDC is afaik the standard way of power point to point transmission in many parts of the world already. So there's no myth, except the ancient myths still kept alive by uninformed - among other groups - teachers that have no idea what has been going on in our grids around the world the last decades.
Good to have the technology to send electricity far with low loss. But why send it at all when you can produce it locally on rooftops and walls? Buildings use so much area that can be co-used for electricity and rain water harvesting, to begin with.
the amount of energy colected with rooftop solorpanels is minuscle/insignificant campered to the energy needs of a country.
you need Big Solar farms to obtain relevant energy generation
It's not enough to power heavy machinary.
great vid thanks
Great story on 1MV DC power lines. Really enjoyed it.
Great video David, very informative. Do you drive an EV or ICE vehicle? Each of us can do his or her part when it comes to climate change, like drive a EV :) China will dominate us all, unless we we wake up and start using more renewable energy. I personally drive a 2017 Chevy Bolt Premier and love it !!! Hopefully moving to Solar & Battery Storage in the near future, change is hard, but not impossible. Cheers Mate, from one of your cousins across the pond.
Hi there. I got rid of my car about 7 years ago. I get the train to work and I walk to the grocery store. I also have solar panels, I've stwitched to a green energy supplier and an ethical bank that never invests in any fossil fuel or unethical projects or companies. I went vegan a couple of years back. I don't smoke and I don't even drink alcohol or coffee. God I sound BORING!!! :-) Anyway, in all seriousness, I agree with you about EVs. If anyone is thinking of getting a new car now, they would be mad to buy an ICE - they will drop in value like a stone within the next 2 or 3 years.
Just Have a Think Thank you for reminding us to your energy choices. We all should inform our fellow citizens of our preferences not being afraid of accusations of „virtue signalling“ by climate deniers.
Additional question: what is your heating system? We are still stuck with natural gas but plan to switch to heat pump which unfortunately is a very huge investment compared to a new gas heating.
@@JustHaveaThink been vegan since twelve, figured you probably were, i'm 70, when i was twelve i had a think
This was looked at many years ago. Politics got in the way. Google Desertec project.
I would only correct you in saying that "politics" should really be replaced with corrupt "Corporate Welfare"
This includes Africa (Sahara) I think?
More specifically, I think it was unrest in North Africa that was the main driver in sinking Desertec.
The Los Angeles department of water and power LADWP has been using long distance DC transmission lines since the 70's from the northwest hydropower to LA.
I learned something new today, thanks!
Yes indeed. Not at 1100kV though :-)
you sir are a very good presenter. hats off.
0:20 why do ppl always ignore nuclear. You cannot ignore nuclear while talking about sustainable energy future.
Edit: He has done videos about nuclear. I was unaware of it
Most people I know are sickened over Fukushima and how it's lack of containment wreaked havoc on the natural environment. Most nuclear power plants are built on coastal areas, or rivers, I understand the need, but that's also a concern; what if, an earthquake? Earth (the solar system at large) is going through seismic activity in quantities never seen in our lifetime. Contamination, do the pros really outweigh the cons? Of course, I can't speak for the gen pop, but I wish one had never been built in my area. I have never benefited from it, nor do I know anyone who has.
@@deborahnorris4613 yes it was a tragedy and the conserns are understandable, but nuclear has evolved a lot and has became a lot safe to the point where a meltdown is almost impossible and very less waste.
Ppl need to atleast put it on the table and have a discussion than ridiculing it completely.
I don't. I've done three or four videos about Nuclear energy.
@@deborahnorris4613 UN report: "The meltdown at Fukushima quelled this(nuclear) excitement. Despite the fact that there were no deaths immediately linked to the release of radiation at Fukushima, some have claimed that media coverage of the meltdown eclipsed the 19,000 deaths caused by the tsunami." I wonder who benefits from media attacks on nuclear power? Zero vs 19,000... So let's focus on the zero deaths part of the event. Japan failed to meet emission targets, in fact is increasing CO2 output rapidly.
@@JustHaveaThink ohh OK my bad 👍👍
Over the years I start to understand the flaws of a system that elects executive every X years, with government B able to reverse work of government A. This sucks in long term strategies, and also fails in giving people the impression that A and B both worked hard for their comfort. I think the Law making should be split into long and short term, with the basal laws and strategies being constructed from state of science (including family planning, Earth, sea, forests, agriculture, energy), and also a "reaction" government with limited law making ability to issues for the people, justice, employment, tax collecting, school, and also insuring each and every company and body is controlled for respect of norms, hygiene, good animal policy etc. We have such justice and press separation from other processes in governments, we should have a major body that is at the top and slow with science consensuses with unpaid experts constantly refining the major processes to insure human survival and quality of life under the Earth atmosphere. Fast elected government may not touch at everything that plays with children count, air pollution, water pollution, ground pollution, waste, agriculture, forests, energy production, and giving rights of building houses or any other city expansion.
WOW, That sounds very much like the Chinese system. The allow capitalism to control the short term values but retain all of the long term development that is critical to the health of the nation.
@@RonzigtheWizard I was thinking about that for the planet, for example : fuels = if you regulate the prices, say with an incline, so that each individual and business owner can rely on fuel prices to increase exacly as planned this is much easier taking decisions.
Democracies were never supposed to be about development. There is no country in the world that's built itself on Democracy.
US: Solen land, stolen labour and stolen resources.
Europe: Same
South Korea: received 13% of the GDP as foreign aid for 8 years to joining the US in destroying Vietnam. (equivalent to the US receiving 2.7 trillion per year for 8 years)
Democracy was always about maintaining the status quo by frequently changing the leaders so no single leader is able to dictate over the TRUE ruling class (the billionaires and the blood money rich colonial exploiters).
But changing the leader even once can cause a serious leadership crisis in most systems and the legitimacy of the leader is often questioned especially if they fail to deliver.
Democracy solves this problem in 2 ways:
1) The illusion of power ensures that the people believe in the legitimacy of the leader because they think it's their own choice. Even though it is rare to find a leader that even 50% of the country actually likes.
2) The legitimacy of the system is never questioned. Don't like a leader? Change them! You've been changing the leaders for the past few decades but nothing ever improves for you? Well it's YOUR fault because YOU'RE bad at choosing leaders of course!
@@TheMinimumPC I've always said that what we live under is only a Democracy om name alone. It always was an oligarchy. Even slavery never went away it just changed the rules. Economic slavery and jail house slavery and the slavery of keeping every colonial country in abject poverty replaced the old system.
The last time this conversation had traction was before Reagan's transfer of wealth from the bottom and middle to the top. The democrats were talking post scarcity society and the republicans were talking the benevolent oligarchy with trickle down. Reagan and "voodoo economics" won.
Just Have a Think I had understood that another advantage to HVDC transmission is that it was not necessary to maintain phase synchronization between all the generators on the grid. This makes it possible to tie together different previously unconnected grid segments or even connect 50 Hz grids to 60 Hz grids.
That can be both an advantage and disadvantage. On AC grids, frequency control is widely used to balance and manage load against generation and energy flows. Larger grids are inherently more stable, so isolating grids with DC connections forgoes this benefit. But as you pointed out it is helpful to connect otherwise separate and maybe incompatible systems
Wonderfully unbiased presentation!!!!!
yes extremely so. (said with the most dry voice u can imagine).