About 5%according to utilities.
By the way, solar panels and other local power generation has no power lost in the transit from generation to consumption.
Not really. You get utility by having a car for transportation. A builder creates value by assembling materials into a home, and the home provides shelter.
Those are positives. Bitcoin is a negative sum game. Less value can come out than goes in.
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Very little is not a zero-sum game.
All economic profits run to zero.
There is a lot of legalized BS. There is a lot of the tax code propping it all up.
So it is cost-effective to replace the old with new stuff because it is essentially “self funding”.
Only if the new equipment has loses that are lower (enough).
Well, I wouldn’t want to live in, say, the upper Midwest and have electric heat in a grid where peak demand wasn’t the priority.
DB2
No - You get some of the 5% loses back with higher voltage transmission lines, but you do not get all 5% because higher voltage transmission means new transformers.
It has not been cost-effective, that is why the utilities have not invested in grid upgrades. We need the government to step in and upgrade the grid like the interstate highway system.
DB2 is correct. As long as the transmission lines have resistance, there are always going to be ohmic heating losses. The only way to eliminate those losses completely is with a superconducting power grid, which I don’t think anyone is talking about.
There is the idea of moving power from large wind farms in the Midwest to cities in the east, for instance. But moving power that distance increases line losses. Better to have the power plants near the population centers where the power is consumed.
- Pete
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Ultra high DC voltage transmission lines reduce line losses significantly. That is what California does by bringing cheap hydro-electricity from Columbia River Dams to California.
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No. That is roughly/mostly the amount lost to electrical resistance which would still exist even if all the breakers, transformers and towers were newer, shinier and stronger. I don’t know how to come up with a number for better, new and shinier grid equipment
Changing to new/higher voltages can lower the amps to get less resistive losses, so some improvement, but not like making the wires superconductors
Ultra high DC voltage transmission lines reduce line losses significantly.
Sure at great cost to save a few percent. Compare that to spending the same money on just making homes more efficient and putting solar on every roof. Most homes could save 10-40% just by having more efficient homes, appliances and even small non-south facing solar…probably for less money.
This doesn’t mean that new transmission lines couldn’t start out as high voltage DC.
Mike
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If that were true, we’d all still be living in caves. Exxon makes money pumping oil because the people who buy the oil use it to make even more money. Google makes tons of money selling ads because the advertisers make even more money with their product placement. Henry Ford died with an inflation-adjusted $200 billion because he figured out how to make cars in large volumes. People wanted the cars because they could be put to productive use. This allowed them to buy even more cars.
Bitcoin doesn’t do anything. When you buy it, all your money goes to the seller, minus the miner’s fees. Then it just sits there doing nothing. You have to pray that someone will pay more than you did. Again, minus the miner’s fees of course.
Some people can get rich from Bitcoin. But most people can’t. It is mathematically impossible.
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We’d be dirt farmers except that Hamilton copied the British financial system to project economic power. The issuance of government debt into the capital markets.
Globally a lot of people if not most still are dirt farmers.
Huh? Small farms began to go away 100-150 years ago because of the development of new farming technology that allowed one farmer to produce a far greater volume of agricultural products at a significantly lower cost per bushel/pound/whatever than historically. This freed up a large number of workers to go work in the towns/cities instead of on farms.
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The financing of the bureaucratic America comes from Hamilton. It was feeble for a while but Hamilton immediately established good credit for the country in Europe. The borrowing of capital by the US government funded Wall Street.
Hamilton and Burr were neighbors on Wall Street.