[tbrownaw]

4. There probably won't be too many of them and that means you can go to some pretty serious lengths to ensure that they're highly reliable.

I would envision a single cable from Australia to China to Russia to Europe. A dogleg down through Africa and

You need 2- or 3- way redundancy, or one drunk backhoe operator (or aircraft cargo pilot) could knock out power to half a continent.

[msandford]

You'd definitely encase them in a pipeline. Something durable. That would be much cheaper than multiple pulls. 1/2" wall 8" diameter steel pipe is real strong and pretty cheap compared with doing a second pull for a redundant cable. But you make a good point about redundancy.