[geeks] electric cars

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:25:31 -0400
Phil Stracchino <phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> Sandwich Maker wrote:
> > that's true.  i've heard that transmission loss is as much as 50%,
> > and that gas pipelines transmit power more efficiently than power
> > lines.
> 
> Transmission loss is significant, but 50% is way high.  If the grid
> was dissipating that much power in transmission, the cables would be
> melting off the towers.

I believe he's talking about overall loss, not single line loss.

Line loss in the USA in 1992 was 7.2% on average.  It is higher in the
UK and Europe, but not much.  I think it was 7.4% for the UK and 8% for
Europe.

However, in some cases it can be higher, like when the grid is
complex and you have multiple conversions and grid agreements in
place.  

Each conversion and new line adds more loss, so for really inefficient
routes, loss could be pretty high.

I don't believe it could get to 50%, but certainly it could be higher
than the overall average.

BTW... the IEEE power group says that the 1992 figure is outdated and
that loss is higher now.  Can anyone find a more recent calculation of
overall power loss, or is that the last time it was done for the USA
and UK?  I could not find figures for Europe.  

BTW, the UK was 7.4% in 1992.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- [Don't you see that the whole aim of
Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make
thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in
which to express it. -- 1984, George Orwell ]]