"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 6/1/2008 3:17 PM George spake thus:

DC high voltage transmission lines have lower losses and are less expensive
to build. They use solid state convertors at each end. 500 kV was the max for
a while and I know the Canadians have a line in service for at least 20 years
that operates at 735 kV DC and I read that the Chinese recently started
construction of a 800 kV DC transmission line.

Wow; so that old Tesla-Edison debate *isn't* settled science like everyone
wants us to believe, eh?

Got any good reading links on this? I'm curious. And, in a nutshell, why does
DC have lower losses? (Not disputing, just curious.)

AC has added capacitive and inductive losses, added to the resistive losses of
DC.