[dredmorbius]

For accuracy's sake: resistance losses in long-distance high-voltage AC or DC transmission are actually quite low. On the order of 6%.

The majority of generating losses (about 60% of input thermal energy) is due to Carnot efficiency losses, not transmission inefficiencies. There's also some loss in transformers (ramping voltages up or down), and rectifiers (converting AC to DC and vice versa).

But the biggest losses are in going from thermal to mechanical energy itself.

[chrisco255]

There have to be some additional tradeoffs with distance? What city would you hope to power with energy from Yellowstone? Seattle? Denver? What would be the realistic costs of getting energy to those places? How much infrastructure build out would be needed? Would the tradeoffs be clearly worth it?

[dredmorbius]

Much of the central US lies within easy reach.

Keep in mind that the same general region is a major coal-producing zone presently, and much of that coal is burned locally for generation: it's cheaper to move the electricity than the coal used to generate it.

This also means that a substantial amount of the transmission infrastructure is already in place.