China Rebuilt Its Power Grid in Just 10 Years — America's Is Still Stuck in the 1960s
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America invented ultra-high voltage power transmission in its own laboratories decades ago, then walked away from the technology entirely. China picked up that exact same idea and went all in, building 34 massive ultra-high voltage power lines in about 10 years that stretch across the country, moving electricity 3,000 kilometers from the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia to giant coastal cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. The American grid still relies on a foundational architecture designed in 1965, earning a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers, while China's State Grid Corporation was given a single mandate to make electricity flow from west to east at any engineering cost. The result is a network that loses less energy moving power across a continent than New York City loses just sending power across its own five boroughs.
The scale of China's transformation is staggering. Faced with rolling blackouts affecting 400 million people in 2002, China turned to direct current transmission at an unprecedented 1.1 million volts, spending 100 billion dollars between 2009 and 2020 to build 6,800 kilometers of ultra-high voltage corridors that stretch from London to Mumbai if laid end to end. Engineers skipped the safe middle steps in power engineering, going straight from 500 kilovolt systems to 800 kilovolts and beyond, working with ABB from Switzerland and Siemens from Germany to invent entirely new switch designs while keeping control of the converter station software. The Changji to Guquan line runs at 1,100,000 volts across 3,284 kilometers, carrying 12 gigawatts of power equivalent to 12 nuclear reactors, while the American Sunzia line proposed in 2009 might start running in 2026 at less than half the voltage and distance for nearly twice the cost. The gap between the two systems is not about engineering knowledge but about how decisions get made, with China's single central office building 16,000 miles of high voltage lines in 2021 compared to America's 11 miles. The student became the teacher, and now China plans to have 11 more giant power corridors running by 2030, connecting to Southeast Asia and reshaping the future of global energy infrastructure.
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once and for all, all Chinese achievements are 100 % Chinese! No participation by any other countries, including the US!!!
China Rebuilt Its Power Grid in Just 10 Years — America's Is Still Stuck in the 1960s
Snap Shift
33,536 views
America invented ultra-high voltage power transmission in its own laboratories decades ago, then walked away from the technology entirely. China picked up that exact same idea and went all in, building 34 massive ultra-high voltage power lines in about 10 years that stretch across the country, moving electricity 3,000 kilometers from the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia to giant coastal cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. The American grid still relies on a foundational architecture designed in 1965, earning a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers, while China's State Grid Corporation was given a single mandate to make electricity flow from west to east at any engineering cost. The result is a network that loses less energy moving power across a continent than New York City loses just sending power across its own five boroughs.
The scale of China's transformation is staggering. Faced with rolling blackouts affecting 400 million people in 2002, China turned to direct current transmission at an unprecedented 1.1 million volts, spending 100 billion dollars between 2009 and 2020 to build 6,800 kilometers of ultra-high voltage corridors that stretch from London to Mumbai if laid end to end. Engineers skipped the safe middle steps in power engineering, going straight from 500 kilovolt systems to 800 kilovolts and beyond, working with ABB from Switzerland and Siemens from Germany to invent entirely new switch designs while keeping control of the converter station software. The Changji to Guquan line runs at 1,100,000 volts across 3,284 kilometers, carrying 12 gigawatts of power equivalent to 12 nuclear reactors, while the American Sunzia line proposed in 2009 might start running in 2026 at less than half the voltage and distance for nearly twice the cost. The gap between the two systems is not about engineering knowledge but about how decisions get made, with China's single central office building 16,000 miles of high voltage lines in 2021 compared to America's 11 miles. The student became the teacher, and now China plans to have 11 more giant power corridors running by 2030, connecting to Southeast Asia and reshaping the future of global energy infrastructure.