Copper and aluminum are being considered for the cables in a high-voltage transmission line where each must carry a current of 50 A. The resistance of each cable is to be 0.15 Ω per kilometer.
(a) If this line carries power from Niagara Falls to New York City (approximately 500 km), how much power is lost along the way in the cable? Compute for each choice of cable material
(b) The necessary cable diameter
(c) The mass per meter of the cable. The electrical resistivities for copper and aluminum are given in Table 18.1; the mass density of copper is 8920 kg/m3 and that of aluminum is 2702 kg/m3.