Science and technology | Rise of the supergrid

Electricity now flows across continents, courtesy of direct current

Transmitting power over thousands of kilometres requires a new electricity infrastructure

THE winds of the Oklahoma panhandle have a bad reputation. In the 1930s they whipped its over-tilled topsoil up into the billowing black blizzards of the Dust Bowl. The winds drove people, Steinbeck’s dispossessed, away from their livelihoods and west, to California.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "Rise of the supergrid"

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