Eurocentric Treatment of Supergrid Roll-Out Strategy

I submitted an article titled "Underground Multi-Terminal HVDC Supergrid in Europe"

for publication in the Wiley trade magazine Natural Gas & Electricity (manuscript submitted December 18, 2013). With each article, I try to introduce a new concept, and in this case I look at the case for HVDC loops as the unit cells of a European Supergrid, with special reference to Germany:

I see similar possibilities within single states in the US; especially California or Texas. This previous post explains why I think that HVDC loops are the natural "unit cells" of a supergrid. That is a convenient fact, because it means that portions of the supergrid that lie completely within one political jurisdiction can also be meaningful projects in their own right; not necessarily dependent on the entire continental scale supergrid being built.