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A comment on HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak achieves first plasma. Parent comment

Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by Tade0 on Saturday June 22, 2024 @05:32PM (#40762398)
> If this works without the sun shining

HVDC lines are already mature enough that the cheapest route is to just wrap the Earth with them to form a planetary grid.

The sun always shines somewhere.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by zizee on Saturday June 22, 2024 @06:57PM (#40762996)
Is this true? What are the costs per km for HVDC?

Perhaps you're just talking about the Eurasian continent? What do the people of Western Europe do? Connect to the US?

Even then, we've seen with the recent Russia-Ukraine war that control of energy is a useful geopolitical tool with Europe being softer on Russia because of their reliance on their gas.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by morsch on Sunday June 23, 2024 @02:55AM (#40765288)
> reliance on their gas.

... and nuclear fuel and fuel rods from Russia. Which are still not being sanctioned btw. It's peanuts compared to the natural gas, admittedly, on the order of 700 million Euro per year.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by fooker on Saturday June 22, 2024 @05:46PM (#40762487)
If the earth was a uniform sphere without oceans and mountains, sure.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by TheDudeMan on Saturday June 22, 2024 @09:40PM (#40763927)
Bunch of projects in the works. But building HVDC lines is not cheap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak ... by Tade0 on Sunday June 23, 2024 @02:57AM (#40765295)
Same goes for nuclear power plants really.

A 2.5GW undersea HVDC line costs $2.5mln/km.

The cheapest nuclear power plant in Europe is the Ostrovets power plant in Belarus, the cost of which was $11bln for a 2.4GW plant.

For that money you could buy a 2.5GW HVDC line spanning the entire EU.

[ Parent | on HN ]