[ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

>>...": a big Diesel loco can produce 4 MW each."

>...Spike, do you have any idea of what it would take to connect those locomotives to the grid?  



What I am envisioning is a special case, unlike everything we have always done with power generation.  We need lots of power, but it is not what we are used to: raising it to high voltage AC in order to transport it long distances while minimizing copper use and resistance losses, etc.

Now the challenge is different, for what we now need is huge current at low voltage, with the power transmitted over very short distance.  Think of the challenge when we need skerjillions of amps but only a few volts.  If it takes a bundle of copper wire four meters in diameter, that is plausible considering the cable bundle from power plant to data farm is only 50 meters.  It doesn't go on the grid and never goes to AC.  It isn't how we are accustomed to designing things.

Someone at some point must have done calculations for an application which requires power to be generated at high current low voltage, transported a very short distance, but it is an odd set of requirements.

spike