[ben_w]

> Batteries are probably going to kill long-range transmission lines and open up remote generation at a scale never thought possible.

Not at current power densities.

The bandwidth of a station wagon filled with hard drives is quite high; the power delivery of station wagon filled with batteries is on the low side compared to a wire made from the same material as that station wagon and buried under the road the wagon would have been driving along.

Even for liquid and gas fuels, people make dedicated pipelines rather than doing it all by truck and train.

Now, if someone figures out how to get something like metastable pumped hafnium isomers working… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy

[ndsipa_pomu]

Surely batteries will be used in conjunction with solar, and as solar is already distributed (except for high latitudes), the need for power distribution will diminish as once you're setup with solar and batteries, you only really need the transmission lines to sell any excess power. Presumably, once solar is rolled out at scale, there will be little demand for purchasing excess power.

[ben_w]

Heavily depends on the details.

Extreme case sometimes used to argue against PV is the Arctic circle. Anywhere in the Artctic circle has to choose between enough batteries to cope with entire days when the sun's below the horizon *or* a transmission line further south where the sun's still up.

Or a different renewable, or nuclear, my point here isn't any particular answer just that there's cases where you might go for something other than PV+battery, and my point before is just about yeeting batteries around.

That said, re-reading the comment I was originally responding too, I may have inferred too much from:

> Right now is likely the time to buy sunny land in the middle of nowhere but near train tracks.

And the previously quoted words "remote generation".

[ndsipa_pomu]

> Extreme case sometimes used to argue against PV is the Arctic circle. Anywhere in the Artctic circle has to choose between enough batteries to cope with entire days when the sun's below the horizon or a transmission line further south where the sun's still up.

I can imagine that they might go several months without usable sunlight, so yes, they'll likely need some form of energy distribution unless they plan on burning blubber for their energy needs.