It bothers me that you want to educate people but you are being so combative and smug. This isn’t the way to change people’s minds. All you are doing is making people feel personally attacked and driving them further away from having an open mind.

This is the first I’ve heard of HVDC, my experience is with typical AC transmission that makes up most of the current grid. Not a lot of experience, but college physics level.

US high voltage transmission is usually AC in one of the following voltages: 345 kV, 500 kV, or 765 kV. I used the 765 kV worst case losses of 1.1% per 100 miles (according to American Electric Power Transmission Facts Q12) which is over generous since most transmission would likely not be using only the high efficiency lines.

Also, transmission range is affected by load and high load reduces line capability.

We’re talking about moving a huge amount of power across 3000 miles. In my experience transmitting power across a nation as large as the US is unheard of.

You also seemed to have missed my point about how much excess power would be required to power the opposite side of the country (in the dark) while basically at dusk. Let’s say 30% of the east coast’s power comes from solar. That would mean that the West Coast would need to provide that 30% excess on top of their current energy demands during a relatively high demand time period. It would also be a bit unfair for the West Coast to be the ones responsible for over-provisioning to accommodate the east coast.

Is HVDC even installed and able to transmit across the US now?

Yes.

Why would we limit our hedging to non-world destroying scenarios? It seems we’re already on track for a mass extinction event anyway. The reason you hedge is exactly for the worst case.

Transmission losses prevent most of what you are suggesting. Across a continent, even with high voltage low loss power lines, you lose 35% to resistance. This doesn’t count the added loss from stepping down the voltage at various substations and transformers along the way. You can expect another 8-15% more reduction from that.

You’re suggesting that the amount of excess power from one side of the country could be enough to power the other side (while still meeting the demands locally) with 40-55% losses. Come on.

Not a strawman when you respond to “sometimes it’s night and solar doesn’t work” with “it’s daytime somewhere”. The natural assumption is that your intention was that day side power could be used on the night side.

Do you have anything to back up your idea that the US grid can or does actually supply power across the entire nation?

Why would anyone waste money on the worse option?

Why do people have diverse stock portfolios?

Hedging and diversification is important. Unforseen consequences and unknown future conditions can screw up your long term plans for 100% renewables. The more diverse our energy portfolio is, the unknowns become easier to weather.

That is the answer for why we build and research something that is more expensive and may divert resources away from better options. To argue that there is literally no place for energy development other than purely renewable is a difficult position to defend.

Your sandwich analogy is lacking because we’re talking about far future consequences of our decision. Maybe you plan to eat the sandwich a week from today. Which do you buy? You don’t have enough information to determine which will be better in a week. Do you pick the chain store’s because it’s full of preservatives? Do you decide to buy both in case one of them gets moldy just to make sure you have anything to eat?

The consequences of developing or not developing potential viable solutions to energy requirements can be far reaching. Completely dismissing alternative options is just not rational.

If you used sources to make your argument it’s not so hard to add them to your comment. Makes it just that much harder for people to call you out like what just happened.