I thought that way back in the early electricity days, that the issue 
with DC was it couldn't be transported very far before the losses left 
little power available, and the AC was necessary to get the power some 
distance from the generating station. This goes back to Edison's days.

On 6/8/2010 4:24 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:
> Charles Craft wrote:
>    
>> 1. Saw a blurb today about a power cable between countries and got me
>> thinking -
>> how do they synchronize all the power stations on a grid?
>>      
> Very carefully.  As for long distance feeds, they are usually DC to avoid
> this issue.  For example, the feed from Hydro Quebec that ends just a mile
> or so from my house is DC.  When you look at the towers, yup there are only
> two lines instead of the usual 3.
>
>
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