I know that one of the challenges of harnessing renewable energy is battery technology not being up to he task (yet), but I'd never thought about creating a grid large enough that demand is smoothed out over a large region.
Edit: Reading the Wikipedia article on the subject [2] it seems that the incompatible Japanese grids are indeed interconnected to a degree. It also seems that the electricity market in Japan being currently liberalized, which I take to mean that it has traditionally not been particularily open for competition. That might explain why nobody has been in a hurry to improve the system as a whole.
[0] http://www.statnett.no/Kraftsystemet/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan
They are actually connected but can only transfer about 2000MW from one to the other via the one connection point.
They have plans to add more interconnects starting in 2020.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Lo...
I know that the grids - as they stand right now - must balance generation and consumption. Would a large outage (or large spike) in any given part of the interconnected grids be able to take out all of it?
Nine regional interconnected grids are already functioning within China, so the technical feasibility of transmitting electricity across long distances at high voltages has already been proven."As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for direct-current transmission was determined to be 7,000 km (4,300 mi). For alternating current it was 4,000 km (2,500 mi), though all transmission lines in use today are substantially shorter than this." [It's unclear when "today" means, or at what voltage these lines were running. But the 1000KV range this renewable grid is running is pretty typical, and, is in the ballpark of these quoted distances.]
For reference, the circumference of earth is about 40,000km (as parent was pondering). The thing is, transformers and wire haven't exactly changed much since 1980. So until we can figure out room-temperature super conductivity, or a more efficient way of massively scaling up/down voltages than transformers, I'm inclined to believe the situation hasn't changed much since then. Then again, I'd love to be proved wrong.
However, local storage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...) is going to be cheaper than shifting solar power around the globe. Further, while you can connect any two grids (worst case generator / alternator pair) that does not make it cost effective.
There's all sorts of things that are easy if you focus on an easy part that doesn't accomplish anything.
However, my point was geography was not the problem.
Yes, crossing the straight is nicely feasible. Putting power to that crossing is not so nicely feasible.
I do wonder how connected these areas are to a wider power grid. It's probably cheaper to just have local power generation than run power cables to these remote areas I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales,_Alaska has 150 people.
ED: Anyway, it's an economic not a technical problem.
Arguably the more important aspect of feasibility.
I'm not sure if the underwater part is the hardest. Even to this day, the roads in the area don't go far enough to connect to the rest of the continent.
I think a "mesh network" for power would be better than a global "client/server" format, but economics, politics, etc...
Why bother with remote power generation and such, when I can hang stuff on my roof and get free energy?
(I am for large scale clean power generation, along with solar panels and other local tech. Just the ones with big money aren't - you know, the ones that make the laws and pass them on to Congress.)
Because the sun is down for about half a day each day. However, halfway across the world, the sun is shining. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get power from there?
D'oh!