Grauniad article about power interconnectors between UK and Europe

well as every green person knows there is an infinite supply of free copper in the world, like there is an infinite supply of hot air and bullshit and wind. And concrete (made using coal) And fibreglass made using oil) and neodymium. And in fact everythng is free except carbon dioxide, fossil fuel and nuclear power all of which are totally so expensive that anyone who suggests using them is a jerk of the first order, innit?

Cynic that I am I expect that UK power companies will discover they can make more money exporting power over the interconnectors than they can supplying it to UK customers.

JGH

Not much point telling anything to the grizzled auld sods on here who have all the self-important opinions. "It won't work", they whine; and as soon as the slightest thing (anything) goes awry (as it does in any project), "I told you so", issues from their cracked old lips.

Personally, I'm happy to see the governments of Europe wake up at last to the barrel that gas exporters will have them over, and while wind, tide, geothermal, and other renewables might not be the be-all and end-all, they will go some way to alleviate the horrible cold winters that are sure to befall us all if something's not done now.

Quite apart from that, I seriously suspect that one or two on here are either taking a bung from the conventional power industries or have vested interests of some sort. I cannot believe their vituperative opposition to something so self-evident is entirely (if at all) based on 'engineering principles'. "Not invented here", and sheer sour grapes play a part in it, too.

En el artículo , Andy Burns escribió:

Exquisite timing too, given that the price of copper is at, or close to, an all-time high.

What's the price of aluminium? They don't use copper for any other large power cables as a rule - all ali - would an interconnector be any different?

The 800 tonnes/km = 800 kg/m figure sounds like bollox anyway ...

Assuming (highly unlikely!) the interconnector consists of two solid core cables then the weight indicates they'd be 24cm diameter, costing £3.6 million/km

in te same way that a sticking plaster goes 'some way' towards curing lung cancer?

No that is probably because you wouldn't know an engineering principle if one fell on your head.

No they dont. In fact the interconnector WAS invented here and I went round the first one in the 1960s.

AS was the steam train and the supermarine spitfire, but that is not a reason to still have them as viable transport systems.

Do you own and run an electric car Grimbly? Why not? It couldn't be that they are expensive and not fit for purpose - though undeniably 'green' - would it?

What about a '5 GW power cable to iceland would cost more than a 5GW nuclear power station, and deliver far less benefit and probably spend

I would expect it to be aluminium, yes,.

Hmm.

This suggests its actually copper thoo

"Conductor: 1 x 1430mm² Cu (copper cable) " "Voltage: ± 450 kV DC "

I guess that's twin no earth balanced about earth and 900 KV between them.

giving 1100 amps as the putative current,.

That 1 GW link cost 500 million for a short hop across a benign channel.

"The 1000 MW high voltage connection between the Isle of Grain in Kent and Maasvlakte near Rotterdam will transmit power in both directions, driven by supply and demand patterns and by price differentials between the two power markets. BritNed was completed on time and within the budget of ? 600 million (£500 million). "

Knock off 100 million for the inverters each end and that's 400 million quid for the cable.

I think the coast to coast length is 125km or thereabouts. So 1,800 km to iceland will cost around £5.8 billion for a GW. crossing some geologically active sea beds into a geologically unstable country.

A nuclear power station comes in at £3bn a GW. It wont break and be out of action for months. It wont be generating power in someone elses jurisdiction, or making land fall in a country that hates england and wants to grab any cash for its own lunatic policies. I refer to Shitlands of course. .

Go figure.

Weight: 44 kg/metre (23.000 tonnes) says britned for a 1GW link

Total area for the twin cable quited at 1430mm squared so each conductor is 715mm squared or 30mm diameter. Running at about 1.1 KA

I'll leave you to work out the resistance of 125km of that..and the losses at a kiloamp!

The cost has to be something like £3.6M a km though.

Sounds more like it

My £3.6m figure is purely the metal cost, nothing for making it into a cable and laying it ...

En el artículo , The Natural Philosopher escribió:

Oh. Just like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima etc. then.

En el artículo , Andy Burns escribió:

I think the insulation, waterproofing, reinforcing etc. probably would double that. For obvious reasons, you can't run bare copper carrying hundreds of kV on the seabed unlike between pylons.

and the heating effect ;-(

Well that heat will just cause convection currents in the sea between the UK and Greenland. I'm sure they will ensure it doesn't stop the gulf stream or any other "normal" circulation.

Allowing for 2x the length (there and back) then R1+R2 is 5.8 ohms, not as high as I'd have guessed.

So 7MW of seabed heating, about 6 million quids worth/year at 10p/unit

I know my eyesight is getting old, but can somebody beat those youngsers at the Gaurdian around the head until they make diagrams where "proposed" and "in progress" don't look the same colour.

JGH

OK, but AAMOI what colours do you suggest? Orange and green look pretty different to me, and I'm in OAP territory.

I've been staring at the diagram and fiddling with the colour controls on my monitor, and on that diagram they look identical to me.

Three colours on a grey background? How about black, white, blue, red, (orange OR green OR yellow). That's five. There are simple tools to work out the best contrasts between colours, but the most effective tool is actually learning it in the first place.

JGH