China’s Electric Highways: fear, engineering, and hidden danger myths

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Keith Bradisher’s recent New York Times The article on China’s ultra -high voltage transmission grid is an impressive piece of scope and reporting in ambitions. It has captured the gross physical expansion of China’s construction: millions of kilometers high voltage corridors, which spread to a continental nation, solar, hydro and coal resources. The description of the marching towers across the ground like “Martin War Machines” is clear and cinema, and in the same way, it succeeds.

But it is also mastered in a place where the language begins to distort the technical truth and become negatively provocative. When readers face the claims of the villagers when the wires or sparks flying from the umbrellas in the rain feel “apathy”, the story moves from engineering to fiction. This kind of imagery can attract the clicks, but it is at risk of feeding a new cycle of EMF hysteria that the world has already learned to move forward.

China’s grid bloodout is the first engineering story. Its State Grid Corporation has developed a series of current transmission lines directly in 800 kV, 1,000 kV, and now 1,100 kV, formed the backbone of the national network connected to each other. This ultra -high voltage directly takes thousands of kilometers away from the country’s hydro and solar shortage to the cities of electricity. Changji – Gokuan ± 1,100 KV link moves up to 12,000 MW in just 3,300 km. Physics are straightforward: For a certain amount of electricity, increasing voltage allows the current to fall, and since the current square resistant losses on a scale, performance improves dramatically. Line losses are much lower than the current system of standard change, but still exist. Resistance to the exchange stations and lines at each end is also several percent of the total electricity. The success of the UHVDC is not to erase the damage, but to handle it significantly at the distance.

In this backdrop, the actual accounts in the piece of breadseer are made more prominent. When a farmer feels apathy when fishing near a line or when looking at a wet umbrella, he reads it as if something dangerous is happening in the air. Nevertheless, high voltage transmission engineers have measured these conditions for decades. Under ordinary design parameters, the electric field on the ground surface below the HVDC line is so strong that light items like hair or grass blade can be transmitted, but not to produce nervous effects. The electric field on the ground surface is almost a Misior match that you can feel in the air before the summer thunderstorm, a completely natural surface that we are regularly exposed.

HVDC’s static field is permanent rather than walking, and the magnetic field is weak compared to its own. If someone feels tingling, it is most likely that in the humid season, small surface ionization of the metal or corona discharge in the metal locations. Such effects can be astonishing but neither is harmful or intact. Think about rubbing the balloon in a baby’s hair, which resulted in the hair standing, sticking to balloons, and probably a steady trauma. Transmission clearance is specifically determined to prevent the power pressure from reaching the dangerous extent. Recently. , A person can occasionally see the brightness of Corona near a fence post during the storm, but there is no risk of ongoing electricity.

Certified research of these facts has been repeatedly confirmed. The World Health Organization, and international studies by the National Health Agencies, suggest that the public exhibitions around HVDC lines are far less famous to cause biological effects. The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s HVDC Systems review has revealed that despite the full potential, the static power sector cannot penetrate the body so deep that the stream of concern can be created. Most person can experience a superficial tangling or corona on wet conductor. In other words, physics is understood and serious. It does not support the flames on the command or the drama of the umbrella.

But such stories spread rapidly because they look reliable and terrifying. This is a familiar model for everyone who has studied environmental impressions. Simon Chapman and Fiona Krchton, with whom I worked during my time as a senior fellow with the Energy and Policy Institute during my time, docuted that such fears spread in communities long before any measuring display. His research on wind turbine syndrome has shown that when people are warned about infrastructure or electromagnetic fields, a prediction of all sets begins to report headaches, dizziness or nausea, even when no sound or field is available. This is a matter of a textbook of the Nosbo effect, where expectations cause symptoms. He described it as a “stated disease” in his book on non -existent wind turbine syndrome because it spreads not through biological or electrical routes, but through conversation, media and social networks. My own work on Wind Energy Legalon and Health Complaints, which was submitted by the Institute in my 2014 report and cited the book widely, showed that there was a clash around the claims of claims, not a turbine construction or power generation.

The same lens is easily applied to the statement made around China’s high voltage grid. A collection of scale, strange and privacy invites fiction. One million volts overheads curse naturally, even if the field on the ground is compared with a stable construction, it feels before the thunderstorm with thunderstorms. When a respected news outlet publishes amazing detail without laying their foundations in the measuring physics, the story contains the logic of infectiousness. Fear spreads faster than power.

China’s media is less likely to suffer a thrilling fear that is roaming about technology than the West, and a piece of brusher will not read in China’s interior areas where transmission projects are increasing. Where it will be read, it is in the United States, and to some extent Europe where the weak -minded and numbers – over -leaping groups, in my opinion – in my opinion – it will be cited for preventing the necessary transmission projects and creating the impact of health where no one is present. More Wind Turbine Syndrome arrives. More EMF Hysteria.

That is why technical accuracy is important. Ultra high voltage transmission is not just an engineering achievement. This is one of the most important tool for decoration. In order to displace coal and balance variable renewable sources, clean strength must be transferred to industrial centers from interior areas to industrial centers. If the public impression goes against these lines on the basis of misunderstandings, it can develop in the world’s largest energy transfer. Reporters have a role in understanding the fear of reporters. Metaphors such as “Martin War Machines” make a living heart of a living heart, but instead of skill implement the image of curse.

In fact, these systems are one of the safest and most careful surveillance pieces of the infrastructure built so far. China’s grid operators, such as Western operators, strict transit distances, grounding protocols, and the real time monitoring of electromagnetic sectors. Each tower, insulator, and conductor has been model for stress, clearance and the launch of Corona. On a scale, the program represents both engineering victory and climate milestone. It is fully appropriate to be surprised by what China has achieved. It is not appropriate to leave readers to believe that everyday life near the transmission corridor is physically dangerous when a evidence is revealed.

Wind energy lessons still apply. Clean infrastructure can be as effectively removed from the tracks with misunderstandings in misconceptions as any policy reversed. Anti -duties are permanent, physics and data -based communication is measured. Commons need credible information more than they need clear stories. Bradisher’s article can create confidence in the global engineering community, while still delivering the greatness of the project. Instead, its most memorable moments reinforce the myths that the invisible forces are working around us, waiting to surprise without any preparation.

The future of transmission depends on public confidence, like the future of energy. This confidence is fragile and is made on a common understanding. China’s ultra -high voltage grid is a real miracle, which is far more electric and faster than any system. It deserves praise for its scale and ease, which is not suspicious of misunderstandings. The true story of recitation is not about sparks and apathy, but about learning a civilization that can transmit power as much as it transmits. This is the real electricity in the air.