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Originally Posted by TherapyforGlencross
It looks like the rise of SF6 emissions line up directly with the push for electric power grids in China. Are there other insulators or is this the best we have to our technology? Honest question, no idea on this.
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The most common insulators for the electric grid in circuit breakers in high voltage applications in Calgary are mineral oil and SF6. Currently they are “the best”, however it’s important to note that if we look at the progression of oil filled circuit breakers and their advancements is that there is room to improve on design.
Some of the oldest styles of oil filled circuit were basically tanks filled to the teets with mineral oil. They were called called bulk oil circuit breakers and they looked like this:
These units lasted years and years but were one bad seal or weld away from making an enormous mess. Over the years they developed high voltage circuit breakers containing vastly smaller quantities of oil, called minimum oil circuit breakers. Take a look at the “newer” models of oil filled circuit breakers:
There is room to improve the design of SF6 circuit breakers to use less gas while still providing a safe insulating medium. The fretting of the use of SF6 like some users have is fair, as some places in the world won’t care if they piss out an entire bottle of SF6 into the atmosphere. But that isn’t Canada, and you would get into a whole world of trouble for that type of release if you did that here.
You can look to countries with terrible environmental track records who (likely) would abuse the use of SF6, you can wag your finger at them, and then go back about your daily business because they aren’t going to give a damn about your opinion. It’s a great product if used properly, and I’ve worked with it a great deal, but it can be harmful if used incorrectly, like almost everything on this planet.