High-voltage lines burn out the atmosphere and human organs

With the growth of ultra-high voltage power lines in our country,
the issue requires close attention, they wrote in a paper published
in the Proceedings of the China Society for Electrical Engineering,
a Chinese peer-reviewed journal, on Monday
(https://bit.ly/3mUcpXx).
China is the only country with power lines that send electric
current at 800 kilovolts or more. The ultra-high voltage technology
connects the hydropower stations, solar panels and wind farms in
its western regions to the densely populated, power-hungry coastal
provinces more than 3,000km (1,800 miles) away.
For comparison, the most powerful lines in the US handle currents
of no more than 500 kilovolts, limiting their transmission range to
just a few hundred kilometres with only one-sixth of China’s load
capacity.
The first Chinese ultra-high voltage project was a 650km line
between coal-rich Shanxi and the industrial province of Hubei,
built in 2009. Since then, the total length of these lines either in
operation or near completion has grown to 48,000km - longer
than the equator – according to the latest official data.
Some of the new lines can send a direct current as strong as 1,100
kilovolts and have increased the energy load by 50 per cent from
the earlier 800 kilovolt lines.
Chinese scientists carried out a large number of studies on
potential radioactive exposure before the ultra-high voltage power
lines were built, which suggested that in most cases exposure would
be far below safety thresholds.
This is because the ultra-high voltage lines are taller than typical
power lines and data collected after they came into operation
confirmed the scientific estimates.
But safety concerns remained, with some nearby residents
complaining of occasional shocks when they touched metallic
objects, such as a clothes drying rack. Measures to address the
problem in recent years have included wire fences over roofs
or tree-planting to reduce the inductive current in affected
neighbourhoods.
According to Wu, most existing studies focused on the human
health impacts but ignored what was happening in the sky.
Her research team discovered that soon after the first ultra-high
power line started operating in 2009, an abnormal increase in
electron density began to show up in satellite readings over China,
suggesting the formation of an atmospheric loss cone.
After years of study, they found some of the long waves generated
by China’s power grid could propagate along the Earth’s magnetic
field and make particles sink over the Indian Ocean. The researchers
said that investigating the grid’s impact had not been easy.
Although it transmits more electricity than the US, Russia, Japan
and India combined, the Chinese power grid leaks only a small
amount of energy into the environment in the form of low frequency
electromagnetic waves.
The disturbance caused by these waves in high altitudes could easily
be confused with the effects of a solar storm or other natural
phenomenon, they said.
The study examined other possible causes such as sun activities and
low frequency radio stations, but ruled them out because the
phenomenon occurred regularly, even when the sun was quiet and
in regions without large-scale transmitters.
The idea that a power grid can affect the atmosphere is not new. In
the 1970s, a Stanford University research team working at a radio
station in Antarctica picked up signals they believed were generated
by Quebec’s power grid.
Mathematical modelling suggested the low frequency waves produced
by power lines could reach an altitude of 3,000km or more where they
could resonate with the ionised layer of the Earth’s atmosphere and
disrupt the magnetic field which shields the planet from cosmic rays.
In the 1980s, some researchers suspected the increase in
thunderstorms across North America from the 1930s to 1970s was
related to this effect. But the theory did not receive much attention
because the power grid was at that time believed to be too weak to
make such an impact.
For decades, the US and other Western countries explored
development of ultra-high voltage technology but abandoned it
because the traditional ceramic used to insulate the current meant
a transformer could reach a weight of several thousand tonnes.
Chinese scientists and engineers solved the problem by replacing
the ceramic with paper, which significantly reduced the weight of
a transformer but is also difficult to produce because it could burn
if tainted by a single grain of dust.
Brand new cables, high performance switches, noise cancellation
and artificial intelligence control technology were also developed
to make the commercial operation of these lines possible.
Beijing has plans to sell ultra-high voltage power technology to
other countries, to eventually create a worldwide grid by 2050.
Some of these lines are already up and running, in countries such
as Brazil.
Wu said the particle sink generated by China’s power grid was
already affecting some human activities, including electromagnetic
surveillance for earthquake activities. She added that the problem
could get worse with the country’s rapid increase in renewable
energy production requiring more long-distance transmission.
An environmental scientist at Beijing’s Tsinghua University said the
man-made particle sink could exist, but its scale and intensity
would be small compared to those occurring in nature.
The scientist, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s
sensitivity, said the many factors involved would make it difficult
to confirm a link between the power grid and extreme weather.
Chinese studies have found that lightning activity in China has
been on the rise, with about 4,000 people killed annually in recent
years - 10 times more than 20 years ago.
Whether the increase could be linked with global warming,
air pollution or the power grid required further investigation,
the scientist said.