Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:20807 sci.energy:5201 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!boulder!gibbons From: gibbons@csn.org (Hugh Gibbons) Newsgroups: sci.electronics,sci.energy Subject: Re: Gold saves energy. Keywords: gold Message-ID: <1991Jun11.062510.28540@colorado.edu> Date: 11 Jun 91 06:25:10 GMT References: Sender: news@colorado.edu (The Daily Planet) Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 27 Nntp-Posting-Host: kamikaze.colorado.edu In article sehari@iastate.edu (Sehari Babak) writes: >Recently, there were much talk about way to reduce the energy consumption. >This not only saves money, but eventually saves life as well. > >Having this in mind, I am curious that haw much energy would we save. If >we gold plate all Al wires that is used for transportation of the energy? > >Let us assume we have one mile of wire. It would probably costs around say >$1000 to $2000 to gold plate this wire. Now depending on the current that >passes through this wire, we might save $2000 to $4000 in the first year >alone. This saving might increase even further, if the oil prices goes up >again, which is a very likely possibility due to declining oil reserves of >the world. > >Has any research been conducted in this way of saving energy. Electricity is transmitted at near-dc (quasi-static) frequencies; under these conditions, the skin depth (depth of penetration of the curent into the wire )is very long, so the wire would have to be essentially solid gold to really get a significant reduction in resistance. By the way, silver is a better conductor. -- -------------------- :-) Hugh Gibbons (-: --------------------