Underwater cables are quite easy to repair and are designed with splicing and easy repair in mind. Cables generally are laid in littoral or shallower water routes, have simple replaceable parts, are immune to elevation changes and the weather, they can flex and move quite a bit, and require very little maintenance. When the remote Faroe Islands for example saw their underwater internet cable cut in two different places, it was fixed in about 3 days.
Underwater pipelines are quite difficult and expensive to repair, they require pumps, compressors, an enormous amount of maintenance, expensive specialized parts, mounting brackets, can't move, and can only be laid in really specific routes with perfect conditions. In Nordstream's case, after 3 of its pipes got blown up, they depressurized and were filled with saltwater destroying many kilometers of all 3 pipes.
We've had transoceanic telegraph cables, phone cables, and internet cables for a long time. The biggest saboteurs of these cables so far have been ship anchors getting stuck on them, or fish nets in littoral waters. Modern cables are buried deep enough in the floor to avoid both. Geopolitical risks are always there, and these are mostly an issue with fossil fuels because of where they come from. The majority of gas/oil produced comes from dictatorships. Their gas/oil giants never underwent anti-trust like much of the west did, in our case Standard Oil, which eventually became all these companies:
So for the countries never undergoing anti-trust of their energy (really an economic base layer), all that power and wealth never distributed and centralized in the hands of single families, or got nationalized, accumulating in the hands of a single dictatorship or despot.
You can't turn off the sun, wind, or earth's core though, and thankfully, bitcoin uses electricity.
Thanks for the insights. I can definitely see how pipe vs wires is a tradeoff you'd want. Even personally, I'd prefer a wire issue at the house over a plumbing issue.
You can't turn off the sun, wind, or earth's core though, and thankfully, bitcoin uses electricity.
I do want to play devil's advocate here. You also can't turn on sun or wind (earth's core is always on) so how does reliability factor into this? the current grids have to maintain a steady level of supply/demand. It is my understanding that renewables are not consistent enough to meet these demands if peak demand happens outside of peak generation time. What's the solution to renewables not being consitent? (I would think nuclear is the solution but happy to hear your take on the matter)
reply
That's what the original post was about. TL;DR:
The world is switching from century-old AC powerlines to HVDC powerlines. With HVDC interconnectors, we can connect grids and leverage time zones, wind schedules, stranded energy, etc. I gave several examples of completed and in-process projects. That's half the renewable consistency (intermittency) problem. The other half is energy storage solutions as they mature (chemical batteries, gravity batteries, green hydrogen via ammonia, etc). So together, interconnectors and energy storage solve the intermittence problem.
Nuclear has a future, just not the hyper-bullish one people paint. A typical nuclear plant puts out 3GW and costs $28B with a 6 year build timeframe. And the costs are only rising. The xlinks morocco renewable project can put out 3x that amount of energy for $9B less, a shorter build timeframe, with none of the longterm security costs/concerns. Renewable designs are getting more efficient, and the cost is falling. I'm all about following that trend to find its bottom.
reply