A lesson for New Labour
See how Communist countries investing in vital national infrastructure grows their economy.
Perhaps we could build a 2nd high speed railway line between Manchester and Liverpool ?
Uncle Sam coughs up $1.9B for grid upgrades as datacenters hit a power wall
Bit barn builders can rejoice, because this week the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced $5.25 billion — including $1.9 billion of federal funds and $3.35 billion in cost-share funding — to support dozens of grid improvements across the nation expected to unlock an additional 23 gigawatts of capacity. The program, which …
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Friday 25th September 2026 21:19 GMT cyberdemon
Great news for Schnieder Electric and ABB!
I will note that 'reconductoring' existing transmission lines with HTLS (High Temperature, Low Sag) conductors increases electric current capacity but is rather inefficient compared to increasing voltage or building additional routes.
But nevertheless welcome. I wonder how much of it will get built though, with AI datacentres and wars gobbling up all of the available HV transformers and the Copper and "Grain Oriented Electrical Steel" needed to build them!
> The program, which spans 31 specific projects in 26 states, is part of the department’s Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) initiative
I think that paranthesis is in the wrong place.. Oh wait, no, it's a selective acronym.. (slackronym?)
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Sunday 27th September 2026 01:07 GMT Sproggit
Re: Great news for Schnieder Electric and ABB!
I'm quite sure that this is cynicism on my part - but given the amount of extra capacity the grid is projected to require - and given that the amount is several multiples of the absolute theoretical maximum that could be achieved/returned from efficiency drives... we should probably be wondering why the decision was made that takes this specific direction?
I suppose it could be that President Trump would like to see results before the end of his term...
My bet, though, would be on the fact that there are donors or friends who stand to benefit from an efficiency-based approach rather than one which has to concede that the best way to add capacity would be through clean, renewable power.
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Sunday 27th September 2026 05:17 GMT IvyKing
Re: Great news for Schnieder Electric and ABB!
"I will note that 'reconductoring' existing transmission lines with HTLS (High Temperature, Low Sag) conductors increases electric current capacity"
It doesn't take care of the problem of the conductors having inductance. The ultimate short time limit for a transmission line is set by the maximum power transfer at which the line pulls out of synchronism, albeit this more of concern for long lines that short lines.
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Sunday 27th September 2026 21:46 GMT cyberdemon
Re: Great news for Schnieder Electric and ABB!
The inductance of the lines, i'd argue, is easier to deal with than the capacitance of underground cables.
Anti-pylon NIMBYs are opposed to overhead lines and love to claim that supergrid transmission lines can be 'undergrounded'. But HV AC cables are closely surrounded by earthed sheaths (lest they capacitavely couple into alternative ground conductors) and parallel plate capacitance goes linearly with separation.
The effect of this is that the capacitive 'charging current' at 400kV outweighs the cable's rated load current at around 100km, so the longest underground cable routes require inductive compensators every few tens of km. These are approximately as expensive as supergrid transformers and have similar lead times, as they are similar in construction and require the same materials that are in short supply.
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Tuesday 29th September 2026 16:19 GMT My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
Re: Great news for Schnieder Electric and ABB!
Not a real quote: "I, Donald Trump, President of the United States, is all about being positive, never waffling back-and-forth. Therefore, I only believe in DC, which will be renamed to 'Trump power', not AC. AC is for losers who flip-flop."
(Science? Engineering? The things that made a large-scale grid possible? Not important in politics -- have they ever been?)
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Friday 25th September 2026 23:36 GMT cyberdemon
Re: ..Reconductoring...
well, possibly it includes re-insulatoring too, if that helps!
I notice some
transmission towerspylons round my way have gone from having fat glass/ceramic insulators to long slender ones on some circuits. I assume/hope the newer ones have a higher voltage rating, perhaps with a view to go from 400kV to 800kV or so in the future.
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Saturday 26th September 2026 14:28 GMT Gary Stewart
Not Again!
If they need the infrastructure let them pay for it unless it provides an essential (emphasis on essential) service, PERIOD. AI at that scale is NOT essential. That is supposed to be how capitalism works, sometimes it makes sense to help a business start up, most of the time it does not.. Now to be honest it hasn't worked like that in 50 years or more but at least a growing number of voters are getting tired of paying for huge infrastructure builds and getting very little in return. This is especially true with mega data centers as once they are built about the only local jobs they provide is facility maintenance with the better paying jobs done remotely. I want to be clear that AI in it's current form has shown some very interesting and useful results in several fields but that level of "intelligence" so far does not require anywhere near the massive buildup being proposed. If it all gets built but not all used because of pie in the sky with unicorns planning or just outright we get screwed again and the CEOs laugh at us all the way to their third vacation villa via megayacht with the "regular support yacht" close behind. Having lived through two massive taxpayer bail outs (third already in progress?) I have had enough and I'm not alone.
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Saturday 26th September 2026 17:09 GMT cyberdemon
Re: Not Again!
Very interesting (and horrifying) podcast about AI's financing and its effect on the US/global economy here:
https://castbox.fm/episode/The-Hidden-Recession-Beneath-The-AI-Bubble-w-Paul-Kedrosky-id6019928-id1001910738?country=gb
Not only are taxpayers paying for pointless infrastructure to support the doomed AI buildout (and delaying/preventing far more meritworthy projects from getting grid connections) but the Trillion-dollar AI debt market is now so big that it is affecting the treasury-bond market, pushing up interest rates on government debt.
History really does repeat itself in 100 year cycles it seems, and we are heading for the next Great Depression at flank speed.
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Sunday 27th September 2026 01:13 GMT MachDiamond
Does the gov get profit sharing?
Utilities are mostly private entities in the US. If they can't afford to raise the money, perhaps they should be banned from placing billboard ads and buying naming rights for sports venues. I expect that the executives of these monopolies could also get by just fine at 1/4 of their current salary.
There's no need for government to pay for any of this. If government would like to help, they can work out ways to expedite environmental reviews, permits and inspections rather than paying for an onerous process that is the government's fault to begin with.
Where I am, once all of the paperwork reduced a small forest into denuded land, the pylons went up very quickly and massive amounts of buildout of wind and solar generation was completed. There's been the addition of a HVDC set of lines along their same corridor and loads more solar farms being constructed. It's a really good area for solar since it suns a lot and the land isn't particularly good for anything else, maybe distribution warehouses, but there isn't the water for agriculture or DC's.