baha wrote:Ok, I give. Build the dam thing if you want. Just don't expect me to help pay for it.
I told you before. Our biggest problem is not energy, it's the environment. You are treating the symptoms, not the cause. It makes me think of a bunch of ants swarming around after Mother Nature kicked a hole in your anthill. You can build it back but she will just kick it again, harder.
Show me a plan where the usage in CA is lowered at the same time as the superconducting DC grid connection to NV is built. While you are refilling Lake Mead thru conservation upstream (shutting down irrigated farms) and building your pumping stations and desalination plants.
There is no plan. You are putting bandaids on the problem. You need surgery
A few problems with what you said:
1) The only problem we have is human overpopulation. Everything else, including climate change, FF exhaustion, resource depletion of all sorts, etc. are symptoms of overpopulation. Anything done to ease the impact of that overpopulation simply exacerbates the problem by enabling more people to exist. (See the "Meat Eaters are Killing the Planet" thread for more.)
2) California has lowered enegy consumption all across the board already. CA has vehicle emissions limits and MPG standards that exceed Federal. It is illegal to install incandescent lightbulbs in new homes. Solar rooftops are being mandated by a new law. All of these efforts have been overwhelmed by population increases, and with them, demands for more power.
3) Superconducting transmission lines do not exist. YES they built a 1km long demonstration line in Europe, which has since been abandonned. It was abandonned because the energy losses were considerably higher than conventional transmission lines. NO, I'm not talking about IR losses in the line itself, I'm talking about the huge energy expendature required for the cryo plant to chill the line into the superconducting zone. Oopsy.
4) You seem to have a fixation on Lithium batteries. I understand that it is your business and hobby. But Lithium batteries may or may not make sense at the individual offgrid residence, but I'm 100% certain they make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER for utility-scale storage or grid-connected residences. They are too expensive and in frequent deep discharge usage, will have too short a life. Pumped hydro is the only solution there, but if you don't have the necessary elevation change, forget it.
In case you are wondering, Elon Musk is promoting Lithium storage for residences and utilities and even heavy trucks for one reason. That would be that unless he can get the unit cost to about 1/3 of the present price, he cannot build $30K battery electric cars and make a profit. That was his boast for 2018, and he's going to fail.