Hacker News Reader

I dunno, back of the envelope says you'd only lose 33% with today's HVDC lines from North Africa to North America. The ocean will sink the lost energy for us. And we can make up the difference with more solar/wind, which is cheap.

Superconducting would be nice to have, but doesn't seem necessary.

View on HN

Huh, that's actually not bad. That makes the idea of connecting Asia/Africa/Europe with the Americas for 24-hour solar power seem doable. I assume it would be tremendously expensive to build, but also have substantial benefits long into the future.

The level of dependency on others and the associated risks would likely discourage this

That's true to a degree; if someone were able to cripple half the world's economies just by disabling a cable then yes, that's a serious issue. On the other hand, if all the involved countries maintained backup power (i.e. gas or coal generation) that could be turned on in an emergency but otherwise unused, then the risks could be mitigated.

Backup generators would of course be expensive to build and maintain, but if they just sit idle 99% of the time maybe the cost would be acceptable. I assume a fossil fuel power plant that just sits idle could last a very long time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com