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350 mile long wire - Canada to New York

J

JDemaris

Well-known Member
I just read about a proposal from a new company in Canada. They want to run a 350 mile-long cable, from Québec to New York City, all under water. Hudson River and Lake Champlain. 2000 megawatts of DC current, all inside a 5" diameter conduit.

I kind of wonder what kind of high voltage can enable DC current to travel that far? I'd hate to get my boat-anchor snagged on it.

The purpose of this is to get "cheap" Canadian hydro to New York City residents. I think we upstaters ought to charge the City a tax for running the big extension cord across our land.
Same goes for all our clean water they take via hundreds or miles of pipes.
 
Ever heard of eminent domain? Seems if a company wants to get something across anyones land they can kiss a$$ with the government and get it. Kind of makes paying for land a bad idea.
Why would they want to run DC anyways? I thought AC power is more efficent for this type of application.
 
I doubt emmient domain has anything to do with it. Since Lake Champlain and the Hudson River are both recognized a "navigational waterways" I suspect they are under Federal control. Of course, this also involves the land under the water, so I'm not sure.

Regardless, my question isn't about access. It's about how that many Megawattts of DC power can travel 350 miles through a 5" cable. Seems it would require amazingly high voltage, but I haven't seen any specs yet.
 
I wonder if this is the same company that wanted to run wires down thru Madison and Chenango counties a couple of years ago and the people stood up to it and the company gave up. Doesn't the state own all the water in NY so all the company has to do is give some Politician some money and then they can get the OK to run it underwater?
 
I think you are referring to the company that did the Marcy South project years back. Under much protest it got put in. Then a second one got proposed, but got knocked down.

This one is proposed by a brand-new company in Canada and this would be their first project.
Transmission Developers Incorporated.

At to rights? Navigation waters are under Federal and State control, but not necessarily the land under the water. I'm not sure where that issue is heading. Some of that land might be privately owned, but subject to public right-of-ways, or "easements by prescription." I know the majority of public highways in New York are privately owned. I own portions of several. My town has threatened me twice with taking my land by emminent domain.
 
There's a BIG set of overhead lines that goes from one of the hydro dams(can't remember which one) on the Columbia River (northern border of Oregon), all the way to southern California. They are apparently DC, as DC loses less voltage than AC over long runs like that.
Transformers at both ends to switch back and forth.

Or at least that's the story I was always told.

Ben
 
The amazing thing is the high voltage. 750K to 1 million volts are considered normal for DC transmission systems.
They are superior in loss to AC systems (I didn't believe it either, but an article in Scientific American in 2010 allowed insight into the technology)
Several are in operation. The difficulty is distribution nets. They are not easily branched to more than one terminus.

The electronics needed to Rectify on the supply end (after dramatic voltage increases, and invert the DC into secondary distribution.)
The electronics is fundamentally similar to the inverter systems used in mwlders and power supplies that eliminate transformers. Jim
 
Thomas Edison was a big supporter of high voltage, long distance DC power lines. If he had his way, the entire USA would be on DC current.

Transformers alone though can't make DC into AC. I'm not sure how they do it with large amounts of power. Smaller wattages are done with inverters. DC has no variating sine-wave, so someting have to simulate, or create 60 Hertz cycles.
 
The Pacific DC Intertie (also called Path 65) is an electric power transmission line that transmits electricity from the Pacific Northwest to the Los Angeles area using high voltage direct current (HVDC). The line capacity is 3,100 megawatts, which is enough to serve two to three million Los Angeles households and is 48.7% of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical system's peak capacity.[1]
 
Hey, maybe Thomas Edison was right after all. DC is what he wanted all over the country. No inverters though, he want our lights and applicances on DC also.
 
Yeah I remember seeing an episode on modern marvels how Edison wanted to use DC power but need a transformer station every 2 miles to keep the voltage up.
 
There is a similar project proposed in northern NH. It is supposed to run beside an existing line for most of the way. My siblings and I own a house that is about 75 yards from the existing line. We are thinking that if it is going to go on the same side of the existing line as our house is, that the house will have to go. Could make the house difficult to sell.
 
DC-DC converters could be used to provide for voltage step-up or step-down, however, as with anything electrical the device will have some losses.
 
I bet it's not as big as the one they'll run from Churchill falls onto the island of Newfoundland, then across the Cabot strait to Cape Breton... I think that one is supposed to be around 1000 MW. I think it's 235 KV DC...
I don't really follow why they'd run down the river when they could go over land? Are transmission corridors that expensive/hard to develop?
I think this one with the stations to convert back to AC is going somewhere around Cad $2B.

Rod
 
DC power transmission is more efficient (fewer losses) only when large conductors over long distances are needed. At 60 Hz, the skin depth is about 1/3 of an inch, meaning that about 63% of the current flows in the outer 1/3 inch of the conductor, whereas at DC the current is evenly distributed throughout the entire cross section of the conductor.

Therefore, for large conductors, say an inch in diameter or larger, resistive losses are higher for AC than for DC because the AC current flows mostly in the outer portion of the conductor rather than being evenly distributed throughout the conductor.

The reduction in resistive loss from the use of DC current is offset by losses in the conversion process from AC to DC at both ends, making DC power transmission more efficient than AC only for large, long distance power transmission lines.

Also, for a given amount of power, higher voltage has lower losses because higher voltage requires lower current, meaning less resistive loss in the conductor. Consequently, you want the power distribution system to run at a relatively high voltage, allowing the use of smaller conductors, but you still need to convert back to some reasonably low voltage at the end user.

AC is easy to generate at a higher voltage for efficient transmission, and convert to a lower voltage at the user end with transformers.

In Edison's time, the only way of converting DC power from one voltage to another would have been through the use of motor generator sets, where power at one voltage drives a motor, which then drives a generator making power at the other voltage, not a very efficient system.

Modern rectifier/inverter systems are more efficient than a motor generator set, but at high power levels are still not as efficient as a transformer.

And that's why DC is used for long distance, high power transmission systems, and AC is used for everything else. Edison had a lot of good ideas, but DC power wasn't one of them.

Keith
 
There was a big stink in parliament a few years ago about Quebec selling power to the states. Quebec was buying the power at a very low rate from one of the maritime provinces(can't remember which one)and then selling it at a huge profit to the states. The province the power was coming from was really hurting due to the economy but apparently as long as the "contract" was in place nothing could be done. Quebec is famous for crap like that. Once the term of the contract was up, they made some big changes. Don't worry though, Quebec is still making money off another provinces electricity. Dave
 
Here is the substation in Northern Oregon, starting point of the longest DC transmission lines in the US, 846 miles. Was up and running in May 1970.Still in operation after 40 years, all BPA's studies show that there is less power loss when transmitting power in DC.

Here is the website with the history

http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/BPANews/ArticleTemplate.cfm?ArticleId=article-20100526-01
Celilo DC substation, OR
 
Interesting. I know there is also a "skin effect" with TV signals using co-ax cable. For some frequencies, copper-coated steel had less dB loss then pure copper. Much depends if low VHF, high VHF, FM, or UHF.
 
The terrain that would have to be traversed is very rugged, and a "Protected Area" DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency would tie it up in courts for years. Only been a year or two that they allowed a few cell towers along the I 87 coridor, from Albany NY. to Toronto CA. because of safety issues, and they had to look like a Tree, haha.
Anyway the "not in by back yard" syndrome will prevail.
 
I knew Edison's idea of DC power back when was a bad idea because the power couldn't travel very far; Now it seems going any distance it is best to use DC for high power.

Kinda confusing tot he layperson. ;)

The basic difference is in how many volts you got? 220 is bad with DC, while several thousand is good with DC is the basic deal?

--->Paul
 
It was one supposed Canadian province that ripped off another Canadian province. In all truth Quebec is an independent country inside Canada.
Premier Joey Smallwood of NFL and Labrador setup the Churchill Falls Hydro-Electric site in Labrador.
When the generating site was nearing completion Quebec said no to NFL running power lines direct across Quebec. Instead of running the "long way around" Labrador and having to cross water.
Quebec had NFL over a barrel with a generating plant but no market for years until power lines could be built years later. Quebec offered a deal which was slightly better than the generating station going broke.
Quebec bought the power for cost from NFL and transported the power for sale to New York for a massive profit over the past few decades.
If NFL needs the Churchill falls power that themselves generate. NFL has to pay the NY rate fro their own power they are giving away to Quebec.
Pretty much an example of how Quebec rips off the rest of the nation.
Quebec does have one export market cornered and that is stripper/dancers they supply all across Canada.
 
Also an example of one of many daft decisions made by Smallwood... They didn't get ole Danny boy bent over the barrell. Power is coming this way this time. Expect the shutdown of NSP's Lingan thermal units in the not too distant future...

Rod
 
I expect Smallwood was paid off under the table.
New Brunswick's Candu 6 rebuild is a find example of what happens when outside contractors are given free rein to rip off a corporation and province with "Time and Material" contracts.
Somebody got paid off there too. Almost as crooked as the rebuild of Pickering A and Bruce A.
 
It's cold up there. Only the hairy ones survive. When I was stationed way up north we called them "buffarillos".
 
It's cold up there. Only the hairy ones survive. When I was stationed way up north we called them "buffarillos".
 
When you get into very high voltage, AC has problems with induced voltages in any conductor nearby, DC much less so, if any at all.
Conversion back to AC requires a sophisticated inverter system.
 
Skin depth is inversely proportional to frequency, i.e., higher frequency = less skin depth. At VHF in copper skin depth is measured in microns, which is why transmission lines intended for VHF & up often use copper clad steel instead of pure copper, or silver plating (silver is actually a better conductor than copper). Stronger & cheaper than pure copper, with no increase in loss.

Keith
 
For a given amount of power, higher voltage equals lower current. Lower current means you can use smaller conductors.

The real problem with DC distribution is the inability to readily convert from one voltage to another. In an AC system, power is distributed at a high voltage and transformed to a lower voltage at the point of use. That's the purpose of the transformer mounted on the pole feeding your house.

If we had to distribute power at 240 volts, the cables would be prohibitively large, which was part of the problem with Edison's system. For example, 100 amps at 240 volts is the same amount of power as 1.8 amps at 13,000 volts (a common distribution voltage). There's a very significant difference in the size of wire necessary to carry 1.8 amps as compared to the size necessary to carry 100 amps.

The problem with DC distribution is the difficulties in converting from one voltage to another, as I pointed out earlier. In an AC system, a transformer is all that's needed to convert from 13 kV to 240 volts at your house.

Because of the skin effect at 60 Hz, DC power can use a slightly smaller wire size than an equivalent amount of power at AC. However, only when very high power and long distances are involved do the lower losses in the cables offset the difficulties of converting DC voltages.

Keith
 
I used to work the door at the "Ballet" back in 87,88 & 89. The french girls were anything certainly were not scruffy.
 
Québec was doing a pretty good job of exporting guns into the USA during the 70s. I don't recall what it was all about. I was living in northern Vermont, 15 miles from the Canada border and big Lake Memphremagog. The Frenchys from Québec were coming over in droves with bucket loads of guns for sale. I bought many, including a huge pile of hand-guns. Had something to do with new gun legislation in Canada at the time.

I did most of my drinking in Sherbrooke, Canada. Yes, lots of hirsute women, but plenty cute just the same. At that time, if anything, Vermont had even more. Mostly middle-aged hippies who landed there in the 60s.
 
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