[HN Gopher] Australian government approves AAPowerLink project t...
___________________________________________________________________
Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar
to Singapore
Author : wmstack
Score : 136 points
Date : 2024-08-21 05:52 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pv-tech.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pv-tech.org)
| ggm wrote:
| Eh, Factually correct (the best kind) but to be a little more
| specific:
|
| > "... _Renewable energy developer Sun Cable has secured approval
| from the Australian government for the Australian element of its
| Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) interconnector._ ... "
|
| So they have licence to make the PV farm, and to cable it to a
| head-end, and to run HVDC to the edge of Australian Exclusive
| Maritime Zone.
|
| What happens after that is still subject to other people.
|
| There's hope of a domestic customer as well. That's important
| because the location is pretty unpopulated and otherwise under-
| developed. Prospects for onshore HVDC to customers are low right
| now: the closest thing is a service called "Copperstring"
| targetting the mining/metals industry being done in Qld but its
| about 1000km away and there are few customers except at the end
| of a long line
|
| That aside, Darwin and Port infra will be there but on the
| normalised "3 million homes" model of scaling Darwin is 60,000
| homes or less.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Edge of its exclusive zone is still 200 miles away from its
| coastline. That's no joke though it only about 10% of the way
| to Singapore.
| ggm wrote:
| Realistically the first big sell is Indonesia. No cable to
| Singapore will make sense but it transits Indonesian waters
| and you would think a willing buyer and seller is there.
| Shorter path so less transmission losses.
| eru wrote:
| It's a trade-off between the capital expense and
| transmission losses of a longer cable, and having to deal
| with Indonesia more than absolutely necessary.
| bigiain wrote:
| From the article: "It is worth noting that the project
| received approval from Indonesian authorities in 2021."
| gdiamos wrote:
| How much copper would you need for a 4,300km 2GW subsea cable?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| That depends. It could be that they use aluminum instead.
| Apparently that's quite common in HVDC cables and interesting
| for cost reasons.
| ben_w wrote:
| Aluminium is almost as good by cross section, much cheaper, and
| the global (mainly Chinese) production is sufficient for a
| global (40 megameter) multi-terrawatt power grid every 18
| months or so.
|
| And yes, I did do the maths; and also yes it's really just
| China at the "global terrawatt" scale (they've become a
| dominant aluminium supplier), but a much smaller distance and
| power rating is probably fine even if China doesn't sell you
| the metal.
| bigiain wrote:
| Interestingly, Australia is amongst the world's biggest
| exporters of Bauxite, which pretty much just needs
| electricity to turn it into Aluminium.
| Tade0 wrote:
| At this length aluminium would have been used instead most
| likely.
|
| With a typical HVDC line not exceeding 1200mm2 conductor cross
| section it's about 13k tonnes, so 0,025% of global aluminium
| production.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > not exceeding 1200m2 conductor cross section
|
| Technically right but I think you mean 1200mm2 (a radius of
| approx 20mm)
| Tade0 wrote:
| Yes!
|
| I actually had an autocorrect suggestion for "1200m2" in
| there for some reason.
| 55555 wrote:
| ~65,000 tons of copper, which would cost about $515 million
| dollars or maybe a billion after being turned into wires. These
| numbers are from ChatGPT which is good at figuring out amounts
| needed but useless at figuring out real industrial-scale
| prices.
| jibes21 wrote:
| Can someone explain how this makes sense economically, isn't it
| really expensive and lossy to transport electricity such a long
| distance?
| Maakuth wrote:
| You double the voltage and halve the resistance. With longer
| cables you can invest more in more expensive stuff at the ends
| to deal with the high voltage.
| left-struck wrote:
| Resistance stays the same, loss due to resistance goes down.
| I'm not sure it halves either, it might be better than
| halving but I'm not sure myself.
|
| Edit: Basic power loss formula is P=I^2R, so yes power loss
| is divided by 4 for a 2x increase in voltage assuming the
| target power delivered is held constant.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Usually the resistance does not stay the same, because it
| is preferred to use a thinner cable, to reduce its cost.
|
| At a given power, double voltage means half current. If the
| resistance is kept the same, that means 4 times lower
| losses. If the resistance is doubled by using a thinner
| cable, that still results in two times lower losses.
| left-struck wrote:
| Yeah I agree, I was just pointing out that a wire won't
| change resistance due to voltage going up. Of course
| notwithstanding the wire heating up or something.
| Maakuth wrote:
| Thank you for the correction.
| dzonga wrote:
| yeah - dumb question from me as well. won't a lot of power be
| lost during transmission ?
|
| What material would they use for the cables at those vast
| distances to make the numbers work ?
| danielheath wrote:
| Obligatory jwz post on the topic:
| https://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
| defrost wrote:
| 22 years old and about three phase AC power on copper
| cables rather than HVDC power on aluminium cable.
|
| But, sure, worth it for the HN=referrer porn JWZ throws up,
| I guess?
| adrianN wrote:
| HVDC has reasonable losses over very long distances and solar
| is extremely cheap. I believe aluminum is used for these
| cables.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Sun shines for free once the initial infra is set up. Using
| HVDC at 1100 kV you could transfer up to 65% of the original
| power which doesn't sound terrible.
| 7952 wrote:
| There is a price difference between the place you buy the
| electricity and the place you sell it. That pays for the debt
| that funded construction. As long as that price difference is
| high enough it makes financial sense.
| Djdjur7373bb wrote:
| Does it actually make economic sense to run a cable large enough
| for that kind of power from Australia to Singapore?
|
| I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers or
| in Indonesia that would make more sense.
| rv3392 wrote:
| I'm unsure about Indonesia, but domestic customers in that
| region would be pretty limited. The closest major power users
| would be in Queensland (>1000km) away.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Data Centers, Green Steel production. Power == Opportunities.
| This is such a massive win for the environment.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| You need water for all of that and that part of Australia
| is pretty arid.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| Might finally provide a viable use for the Ord River
| catchment, though ..
| tdrz wrote:
| With cheap energy, desalination might make economic sense
| for Australia.
| eru wrote:
| For that, you'd need to make massive investments in a part
| of that world that has mostly untouched nature.
|
| It might or might not be a good idea. But you need to then
| compare those massive investments to the relatively modest
| investment of the power cable to bring the electricity to a
| part of that world that already has all the other
| infrastructure needed, and also already has lots of water.
| bigiain wrote:
| I did a little back of the envelope calculation in a
| discussion here last week:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220499
|
| If Australia refined _all_ of the 40,000kt of Bauxite we
| export each year into "frozen electricity" Aluminium,
| that'd only require about 600GWh, or about 4% of the 1.7GW
| 24x7, or 15,000GWh per year this would send to Singapore.
|
| Large datacenter are in the 100MW sort of range, so only
| single digit GWh per year.
|
| Australia generates a few hundred TWh per year. 272 TWh in
| 2021/22 - or 272,000GWh, around 20 times what this project
| will export to Singapore.
|
| Data centers and Aluminium and Iron smelters are big
| electricity consumers. But they barely even move the needle
| compared to cities with millions of households.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| If you count those 2 maybe but those aren't the only
| industrial. Residential consumption is 33% and industrial
| is 46% in Indonesia. The mix is similar for most
| countries
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233761/indonesia-
| electr...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Australia famously is not a good place to manufacture
| anyways because the "resource curse" makes AUD expensive
| and exports noncompetitive.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Approximating bauxite as pure aluminum oxide [1], 40
| million tons of bauxite contains about 21 million tons of
| aluminum. A ton of aluminum takes about 14 megawatt hours
| of electricity to produce [2]. That would be about
| 294,000,000 megawatt hours (294,000 gigawatt hours, or
| 294 terawatt hours) to turn Australia's bauxite exports
| into aluminum. Australia could easily double its
| electricity production/consumption to refine bauxite into
| aluminum metal instead of exporting the bauxite.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxide#Production
|
| [2] https://www.mining.com/web/aluminum-price-
| hits-13-year-high-...
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| You're off 3 orders of magnitude, 40,000,000,000 kg x
| 15,000 Wh/kg = 600TWh (you likely tripped on the kt,
| which is 1000x1000kg, at least I did the first time I ran
| your numbers). That's not 0.2% of Australia's energy use
| but 200%.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Indonesia probably has enough land for its own panels.
| defrost wrote:
| Indonesia is ~ 17 thousand islands, many steep equatorial
| jungled volcanic slopes and at 275.5 million is the fourth
| highest population for a country globally.
|
| Land is in tight demand with food a priority over panels and
| issues that may not be apparent (clear slopes leads to
| instability, and keeping them clear is a Sisyphean task,
| etc).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Indonesia is possibly the best place on the world for
| floating PV at sea (rather than inland lakes as it usually
| is).
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Is anyone floating solar panels in the ocean? That sounds
| tough, but obviously worth exploring.
| richrichie wrote:
| Singapore with a native population of about 4 million has
| reserves of about $1 trillion. They can afford to splurge to
| claim green/net-zero status.
|
| Shopping calculations for them need not be about economic cost
| benefit analysis.
| eru wrote:
| > Shopping calculations for them need not be about economic
| cost benefit analysis.
|
| But there's also no good reason not to apply cost/benefit
| analysis.
|
| > Singapore with a native population of about 4 million has
| reserves of about $1 trillion. They can afford to splurge to
| claim green/net-zero status.
|
| Of all numbers to bring up here, why did you pick foreign
| exchange reserves? GDP or wealth might be more relevant?
| richrichie wrote:
| No one applies economic cost benefit analysis to buy a
| Louis Vuitton bag for $50,000. Prestige, signalling,
| membership to exclusive club, etc dominate the
| consideration.
|
| Reserves are cash in hand and represent immediate and hard
| spending power.
| snoxy wrote:
| Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing
| unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.
| chii wrote:
| > proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus
| on renewables.
|
| they're doing unrealistic nuclear proposals, because they
| know it takes a long time to ramp up, and in the mean time,
| their buddies' investments in the coal industry gets time to
| exit and profit properly. It's designed to prevent losses in
| fossil fuel investments.
|
| Not to mention that australian nuclear cannot be profitable
| imho - not when solar is so cheap. Their current proposals
| for nuclear basically requires taxpayer subsidies.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Last time I visited this it felt to me that Australia's
| metro's are small and spread far apart so that a typical
| sized nuke plant is overkill.
| eru wrote:
| The South East of the country has some decent sized metro
| areas that aren't too far away from each other.
| preisschild wrote:
| Nuclear power plants, which have been successfully used for
| decades, are "unrealistic" now?
| pas wrote:
| there has been an unfortunate "phase shift" since 1970 in
| the nuclear energy industry/ecosystem, mostly because the
| risk engineering principle/mandate called ALARA (as low as
| reasonably achievable), and of course reasonable does not
| mean profitable. (which makes sense, we want safe reactors
| not just "there was a safety budget, and we spent all of
| it" >>safe<< ones, right? sure, but the real world is
| stubbornly full of cost-benefit trade-offs, and apparently
| we crossed it somewhere during the 70s.)
|
| https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-
| flo...
|
| "Nuclear followed the learning curve up until about 1970,
| when it inverted and costs started rising"
| eru wrote:
| Nuclear is held to a much higher safety standard (eg in
| terms of deaths per Joule) than any other form of
| electricity production. And that includes photovoltaic!
|
| Nuclear is so safe--even fully factoring in the accident
| at Chernobyl--that people very occasionally falling off
| rooftops when installing solar panels is a bigger health
| hazard per Joule produced.
| duckmysick wrote:
| How much bigger of a health hazard is
| manufacturing/installing solar panels compared to
| nuclear? Let's say, per one terawatt-hour of produced
| energy, how many people die doing each?
| lazide wrote:
| First you're going to need reliable worker safety data
| and population cancer rate data out of China (which makes
| almost all panels), which.... Good luck.
| eru wrote:
| You can check some numbers (and sources) at
| https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
| cgravill wrote:
| Some comparisons of power generation by deaths here:
| https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No one has to evacuate a city when someone breaks a solar
| panel, though. Deaths aren't the only parameter here.
|
| Nuclear safety events are rare, rarely fatal, but can be
| very large in impacted area.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Hydro dam failures can cause mass destruction and
| evacuations of entire cities. Nuclear is not unique in
| this aspect.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I didn't say it was unique in this aspect; it's a
| difference between nuclear (and hydro) versus solar.
| L-four wrote:
| Nuclear power is too safe, rare events are scary. If there
| were more nuclear accidents people would accept it as
| normal and be all for nuclear power.
| defrost wrote:
| Unrealistic in _Australia_ for a solid report 's worth of
| reasons that make them _economically unfeasible_.
|
| https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2024/may/csiro-
| release...
|
| Meanwhile nuclear is feasible in China, South Korea,
| _maybe_ in the UK (who are well into sunk cost on their
| next reactor already), and _probably_ in the US.
| stubish wrote:
| Nuclear power plants are unrealistic to build in short time
| frames, such as trying to meet agreed green energy targets.
| Part of the Nuclear proposal being put forward by
| Australian conservatives includes dropping out of the Paris
| Agreement and refocusing on a 2050 time frame (ie. past the
| politicians' retirement age)
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| My understanding is that I the time it takes to build a
| nuclear power plant, a helluva lotta solar power generation
| can be built and up and running and generating power.
|
| And in that time span as well, solar power will increase
| its efficiency.
|
| And then batteries, to store and deliver that power outside
| of generation hours, are a parallel to that.
|
| If a nuclear power plant could be built quickly and simply,
| the equation would be different.
|
| Unfortunately, from the limited amount that I've read,
| nuclear power plant projects often run over time and over
| budget, exacerbating the time scale issue I described
| above.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Power cables are getting cheaper and cheaper. The expensive
| part used to be the voltage conversion stations at the ends,
| but with mass production of MOSFETs for EV's these have now
| become far cheaper than the JFET's and other exotic silicon
| that used to be used.
|
| In turn, that means voltages can be higher, letting one use
| more of the cheaper PVC or XLPE insulating material and less
| expensive aluminium for the same amount of energy delivered a
| large number of kilometers.
|
| To be honest, I don't think we're many decades away from the
| cable+conversion stations themselves cost being irrelevant, and
| the administration costs, land purchase costs, etc dominating.
| Kuinox wrote:
| What material is made the power cable ? I thought copper was
| getting more and more expensive ?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Some use Copper, but usually Aluminium is used.
|
| Aluminium is far less dense, which in turn makes the whole
| cable bigger, which has other costs (eg. fewer kilometers
| of cable fit in a boat). Usually it's still the best choice
| overall though.
| Kuinox wrote:
| Thanks for the reply
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Would they be using AC or DC? I heard that very long cables
| using AC can be more lossy
| nsonha wrote:
| is there any thing special about the nature of such project
| that makes you ask this question? By default, long range
| transmission is always DC for that exact reason.
| londons_explore wrote:
| AC is a sine wave, of which the peak is a factor of Sqrt(2)
| higher than the DC voltage. That means your insulation
| needs to be sqrt(2) thicker - ie. 41% more insulation
| material.
|
| On top of that, you _also_ have losses to the cables
| capacitance with AC.
|
| But DC has the cost of the conversion stations to consider
| - both capital cost and efficiency causing operational
| cost.
| tdrz wrote:
| > But DC has the cost of the conversion stations to
| consider - both capital cost and efficiency causing
| operational cost.
|
| I suppose you mean AC-DC conversion stations. Assuming
| only solar energy will be "pumped" over the wire, then
| the "only" conversion stations that are needed are at the
| consumer, right? I said it before, I don't know much
| about electricity, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
| lazide wrote:
| It's really difficult to make solid state components that
| work at million+ volts.
|
| It's comparatively quite easy to make transformers that
| work at million+ volts.
|
| So anytime you need to do any sort of voltage boosting,
| conversion, or the like, DC is going to be expensive and
| relatively fragile compared to AC.
|
| If it's just once, that's not bad. If it's often, that
| sucks.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > It's really difficult to make solid state components
| that work at million+ volts.
|
| You can split (or add up) the million volts as
| transmitted at either end so the individual components
| only work across a small fraction of the 1MV potential
| difference. This is how can get 12V from 1.5V batteries
| or use 1V LEDs from a 12V line.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| It doesn't seem like anyone directly answered your
| question. As far as I am aware, all long distance undersea
| power cables are high voltage DC. I believe this has to do
| with the efficiency of power transfer over long distances.
| immibis wrote:
| AC loses power by inductively and capacitively coupling
| to nearby objects. It's manageable at medium distances
| above ground, cheaper than a pair of converter stations.
| However, water is much more conductive than air and
| losses from an underwater AC cable would be much greater.
| BillSaysThis wrote:
| This is Australia, it's AC/DC!
| contingencies wrote:
| For the confused that is a reference to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC
|
| Amusingly (IMHO), _The band 's line-up remained the same
| for 20 years until 2014 when Malcolm retired due to
| early-onset dementia, from which he died three years
| later; additionally, Rudd was charged with threatening to
| kill and possession of methamphetamine and cannabis.
| Stevie, who replaced Malcolm, debuted on the album Rock
| or Bust (2014). On the accompanying tour, Slade filled in
| for Rudd. In 2016, Johnson was advised to stop touring
| due to worsening hearing loss._ So a rocker's fate:
| forgot what planet they were on, went mad on drugs
| becoming threats to society, lost their hearing, or kept
| touring indefinitely with a changing lineup cashing in on
| past glories.
|
| Similar period
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Under_(song)
| jaidan wrote:
| The problem with long distance AC is the reactive power
| component caused by the capacitance, and the voltage rise
| caused by the Ferranti effect.
|
| The reactive component has significant impact on the
| generation equipment and grids. It also causes the Ferranti
| effect, where the voltage along the cable rises. This can
| make managing the voltage within the cable difficult
| because at no load, the load end has a higher voltage than
| the source, and when loaded, the middle of the cable has a
| higher voltage than both ends.
|
| During stable operation these effects can be managed with
| Statcoms, shunt reactors and voltage regulation tap
| changers. However during transient operation you will be
| relying upon the static protective devices such as surge
| arrestors, depending on how large the transient is.
|
| DC transmission does not suffer from the same reactive
| power component and has less losses, but it does require
| large convertor stations at both ends.
| bhy wrote:
| Why higher voltages can result in cheaper insulation
| materials? Wouldn't it be the opposite?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Nah - the insulation material costs ~ $0.80/liter, whereas
| aluminium conductor costs $6.50/liter.
|
| If you can have the conductor 1mm^2 thinner (capable of
| carrying less current for the same heat production) and the
| insulation 1mm^2 thicker (capable of handling a higher
| voltage) and transfer the same power, then you'd save
| money.
|
| It only works up to a certain limit obviously - the
| relationship is non-linear and there is an optimal point.
|
| The actual tradeoff involves a lot more modelling, because
| you need to consider all kinds of other factors, not just
| the costs of the conductor and insulator.
| coryrc wrote:
| > The expensive part used to be the voltage conversion
| stations at the ends, but with mass production of MOSFETs for
| EV's these have now become far cheaper than the JFET's and
| other exotic silicon that used to be used.
|
| Why do you believe these things are related?
|
| HVDC lines operate in the hundreds-of-kilovolts range. For
| example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink operates at
| 400kV. There are no MOSFETs or JFETs directly involved in
| stepping down that power.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Semiconductors are stackable to get higher voltage. They're
| parallelizable for more current. Cost scales linearly with
| voltage and current, and is therefore constant WRT to
| system power.
| tim333 wrote:
| Apparently they use thyristors https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Thyristor#HVDC_electricity_tra...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_converter#Thyristor_va
| lve...
| christophilus wrote:
| My very first thought was: that cable gets snipped in wartime.
|
| Not a big deal, if your grid can handle the loss, but this
| certainly can't be the gameplan for the bulk of your power.
| roenxi wrote:
| While Singapore is a surprisingly martial country, if they
| get into a war with anyone in SEA they're running a very real
| risk of being destroyed. Indonesia alone has 5x their GDP and
| 20x their population. There isn't much difficulty choosing
| which city to target first when going up against Singapore
| either.
|
| In Singapore's situation, they can probably invest assuming
| that they are not in a military conflict with anyone. If they
| get into a war with anyone who can cut that cable they will
| be returning to the stone age anyway. If Indonesia objects to
| them they will go, if someone with the power to coerce
| Indonesia objects to them they're in deep trouble.
| eru wrote:
| > While Singapore is a surprisingly martial country, if
| they get into a war with anyone in SEA they're running a
| very real risk of being destroyed. Indonesia alone has 5x
| their GDP and 20x their population.
|
| Wikipedia gives an estimate of $1.47 trillion for
| Indonesia's GDP in 2024. The estimate for Singapore is
| $525.228 billion. The factor seems to be less than 3x.
| Where do you get 5x from? Are you going by PPP or so?
|
| > In Singapore's situation, they can probably invest
| assuming that they are not in a military conflict with
| anyone. If they get into a war with anyone who can cut that
| cable they will be returning to the stone age anyway. If
| Indonesia objects to them they will go, if someone with the
| power to coerce Indonesia objects to them they're in deep
| trouble.
|
| You can't make those assumptions, if you don't want to be
| bullied. Singapore doesn't have that cable right now and we
| ain't in the stone age. That situation ain't no different
| from having a cable, but it being cut.
| roenxi wrote:
| I was looking at the PPP figures. By accident as it
| happens, I was looking at the first box in Wikipedia with
| "GDP" in it. But I think that is still fine in this
| context.
|
| > You can't make those assumptions, if you don't want to
| be bullied. Singapore doesn't have that cable right now
| and we ain't in the stone age.
|
| You aren't at war either as far as I know, and hopefully
| it stays that way. But if Singapore happens to be at war
| with someone who thinks cutting that cable is a good
| option then the stone age beckons. And not because of the
| cable.
| bigiain wrote:
| I recall reading Singapores energy rules say this cable can't
| supply more then 15% of Singapore's requirements, presumably
| to protect against that.
| maxglute wrote:
| Singapore has no strategic depth anyway, becoming dependent
| on importing power isn't some extra vunerable vector vs
| building domestic generation that likely can't be protected
| long term. Current is Singapore military vs region is like
| PRC:TW in the 90s... back then TW with US equipment was one
| of the more potent forces in the region and could stomp far
| larger/poorer countries with inferior hardware. But advanced
| equipment can only scale so far vs quantity, and as rest of
| ASEAN gets wealthier they're going to build out more modern
| capabilties, at scales that rich but small Singapore won't
| have the resources to defend against. If anything integration
| with AU, with military infra (and future US B21s) is probably
| more secure / geopolitical hedge against other's meddling.
| leoedin wrote:
| Yeah - from a purely technical point of view it seems strange
| that you'd run a power cable 2000 miles to Singapore to service
| 4 million people, running alongside the coast of Bali, Java and
| Sumatra - population 210 million.
|
| Presumably those in Singapore have a lot more buying power
| though. And the politics are more favourable for big capital
| investment projects.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yeah, they also have zero room left so I guess the option was
| between more dirty power stations in Malaysia or this. Seems
| like a wise, forward-looking initiative.
| eru wrote:
| Singapore has plenty of room left, and we are making more
| via land reclamation. The question is just one of
| opportunity costs: what else could you do with the land?
| bigiain wrote:
| I'm pretty ignorant about Singapore, but... I get the
| impression it's quite small. Wikipedia says 750 sq km.
|
| The solar farm powering this Suncable project is 12,000
| hectares, or 120 sq km. So the solar farm is 1/6th the
| size of Singapore. Although Singapore is only planning to
| buy around 1/3rd of the capacity, so maybe this'd be
| equivalent to only 40 sq km, or 1/20th the size of
| Singapore.
|
| I suspect there are more profitable uses to the Singapore
| economy for land reclamation than dropping solar panels
| on it?
| nsonha wrote:
| the country has a big housing affordability issue.
| ivirshup wrote:
| But the majority of Singaporeans live in public housing
| where rent is adjusted for income based via a grant
| system?
| eru wrote:
| > I suspect there are more profitable uses to the
| Singapore economy for land reclamation than dropping
| solar panels on it?
|
| Oh, I thought you were talking about power stations in
| general, not only photovoltaic.
|
| Yes, there are more profitable uses in Singapore. Though
| for many uses you can add some solar panels on top of eg
| roofs of buildings.
| eru wrote:
| > I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers
| or in Indonesia that would make more sense.
|
| Australia is a big place. The northern tip of Australia, where
| this project is based, isn't really that much further from
| Singapore than from the Australian population centres in the
| South East of the continent.
|
| Indonesia is much poorer than Singapore, and has awfully
| inefficient bureaucracy and regulatory environment.
| angled wrote:
| Not really? The company behind this, SunCable, has some
| history:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/billionaire-cannon-b...
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/sun-cable-enters-admi...
|
| I guess MCB found a way to make it work pending future
| investment that may not occur until 2027:
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-21/suncable-receives-env...
|
| > The approval paves the way for the next phase of development
| to deliver industrial-scale electricity to customers. But it
| still has some way to go, with a final investment decision not
| expected until 2027.
|
| and
|
| > However, SunCable still needs to negotiate Indigenous land
| use agreements with a number of different traditional owner
| groups along the transmission line route to Darwin.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Australia is going to have make it Rd2 of being an energy
| commodity superpower. 40 years of exporting coal to China, it can
| look forward to 1000's years of export solar to APAC.
| nroets wrote:
| Technology is progressing so fast that something like space
| based solar or fusion power will replace terrestrial solar
| within 100 years.
| stavros wrote:
| Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some
| remote area somewhere?
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| I'm pretty sure someone will figure out how to make a
| working solar sail that captures energy and beams it to
| earth via microwaves.
|
| Please enough of them far away from Earth and you get
| pretty much unlimited energy all year round.
| stavros wrote:
| You get the same if you place solar panels in places
| around the equator, without all the messiness of orbital
| repairs and GW death rays. I can't see this being cheaper
| than just some panels on the ground.
| eru wrote:
| Why would you want to do orbital repairs? For the amount
| of effort required, you'd just send up a replacement.
| stavros wrote:
| And we're saying that deploying new solar sails (with
| integrated power transmitters) to orbit is cheaper than
| replacing a solar panel on earth?
| eru wrote:
| Not at the moment, but at some point it might be. Real
| estate on earth has lots of competing uses, so it has a
| lot of opportunity costs.
| adrianN wrote:
| The death ray might be the feature that sells the whole
| thing.
| stavros wrote:
| I like the way you think.
| Aachen wrote:
| Inventing the Dyson Sphere one step at a time
| eru wrote:
| Eventually, the limiting factor will be how to get rid of
| the waste heat.
|
| Even if you can turn 100% of the energy you received from
| space into electricity, in the end it'll all turn to
| heat.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Ok, so we get a really big heat pump that sends all the
| heat to space.
| eru wrote:
| > Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in
| some remote area somewhere?
|
| When land becomes the limiting factor on earth.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Land will _never_ become the limiting factor on earth, at
| least not for solar power.
|
| Assuming the worst-case predictions of climate change
| come true, there will be more than enough desert capacity
| along the equatorial areas to provide power for the rest.
| eru wrote:
| > Land will never become the limiting factor on earth, at
| least not for solar power.
|
| What makes you think so? There's always more you can do
| with more energy. 'Never' is a long time. And there are
| opportunity costs from other uses you could put land on
| earth to.
|
| You are right that it will be a while before remote
| corners on earth become more expensive than space for
| solar power generation. But not 'never'.
|
| (Btw, if you think really big, the limit for how much
| power we can use on earth is given by how much waste heat
| we can radiate into space.
|
| At some point, you don't want to keep beaming down energy
| from space into earth, even if you somehow could convert
| 100% of the received power into electricity with no
| losses: because at the end all the electrical power used
| will still turn into heat. Heat that we will have to get
| rid of.
|
| At that point in time, you might want to use the
| electricity directly in space, eg to run data centres
| there, and just beam the results of the computations
| down.)
|
| > Assuming the worst-case predictions of climate change
| come true, there will be more than enough desert capacity
| along the equatorial areas to provide power for the rest.
|
| While climate change might become unpleasant, I have no
| clue what it has to do with any of this? The surface of
| the earth will stay roughly constant and so will its
| orbit, and the sun will shine regardless of what happens
| on earth. (And I assume that if you wanted to badly
| enough, you could easily float solar panels on top of the
| ocean; at least easier than blasting them into space.)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > What makes you think so? There's always more you can do
| with more energy. 'Never' is a long time. And there are
| opportunity costs from other uses you could put land on
| earth to.
|
| The entire world's power supply could be met by
| sacrificing just 3.27% of the US [1]. The Sahara desert
| is already economically useless as it is completely and
| utterly inhospitable, unable to support life beyond a few
| shrubs, insects and felines.
|
| > While climate change might become unpleasant, I have no
| clue what it has to do with any of this?
|
| Simple, the amount of desertified space will grow, and so
| space that is now unusable for solar power because it can
| actually be used at the moment can then be used for
| power.
|
| [1] https://www.axionpower.com/knowledge/power-world-
| with-solar/
| eru wrote:
| > The entire world's power supply could be met by
| sacrificing just 3.27% of the US [1]. The Sahara desert
| is already economically useless as it is completely and
| utterly inhospitable, unable to support life beyond a few
| shrubs, insects and felines.
|
| So? We can always grow our energy consumption to meet
| supply.
|
| > Simple, the amount of desertified space will grow, and
| so space that is now unusable for solar power because it
| can actually be used at the moment can then be used for
| power.
|
| The oceans are a lot bigger than all the deserts put
| together.
| audunw wrote:
| Space based solar might not take a form where we just put
| mirrors in space to boost the output of existing terrestrial
| solar cells. The benefit is that the receivers on the ground
| can receive energy directly from the sun when the sun is up,
| and the space mirrors can be used to provide light to areas
| that are completely dark in winter.
|
| I don't think microwave beaming is ever viable
|
| Most fusion concepts are thermal power plants. Those have
| inherent downsides that have nothing to do with the nuclear
| energy providing the heat for the steam turbines. So they
| will never fully replace renewables. Helion's concept might
| work. But that remains to be seen.
| closewith wrote:
| What would those downsides be?
| adrianN wrote:
| Steam turbines alone are more expensive than solar.
| lazide wrote:
| Space based solar (lens or microwave) is a non starter for
| one simple reason - it would be an ideal supervillain
| weapon to anyone who could steer it.
| lolc wrote:
| The station couldn't be used as a threat. And its use
| would be very limited in time.
|
| Taking out the rogue orbital power station would be a
| competition between very trigger happy militaries. Who
| wouldn't want to demonstrate their satellite killers on a
| legitimate target?
| nsonha wrote:
| Once we start making these predictions with no single one of
| such project even planned, then people start predicting about
| all sort of bat shit crazy ideas "within the next 100 years"
| and there is no philosophical razor we can employ to discern
| them from the legit ones.
| quitit wrote:
| I've read "in 100 years" about many technologies that we'd
| supposedly have in our current era.
|
| It's an often used qualifier to dodge what can turn out to
| be meritless predictions. Just long enough into the future
| to sound promising, but also far enough into the future to
| not tempt a need for supporting evidence.
|
| In my view if we don't have the underpinnings or motivation
| today to support such forward looking statements, then
| there is no genuine foundation for claiming that the
| situation will improve merely as time moves on. Technology
| only comes about when we make it, and only develops rapidly
| when there is a significant motivation for putting serious
| manpower behind it.
|
| One could just as easily say that we'll have small and
| portable fusion reactors that completely satisfy our energy
| needs.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| What advantage does Australia have over other Asia pacific
| countries to justify the infrastructure costs? Only Singapore
| where space is at a premium. Other countries can generally find
| space (even if over the water) and their worker costs for
| maintenance will be far lower.
| rozenmd wrote:
| Huge amounts of land with stable sunny weather.
| senectus1 wrote:
| not to mention fairly high skill/techonology level.
| eru wrote:
| And reasonably stable and competent government.
|
| Not at Singaporean levels of competent, but better than
| almost anywhere else in South East Asia.
| grecy wrote:
| All while Australian's themselves pay astronomical prices for
| power
| Aachen wrote:
| Surely solar panels are affordable with typical Australian
| household incomes? And much more effective even in southern
| Tasmania at 45degS as compared to southern Finland at 60degN
| (where they're apparently cost-effective since they're
| building solar farms).
|
| If they feel their electricity provider is screwing with
| them, why not make their own? Probably even with batteries it
| would pay for itself given the ROI I'd guess panels have
| there
| seb1204 wrote:
| Australia is quite good with residential rooftop solar.
| Last time I heard about payback times this was under 3
| years for a 10 kW system.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Payback time is a function of =install cost/power price
|
| We in NZ are cursed with cheap power (albeit I can sell
| solar power to spot market at 3x of night retail rate)
| theshackleford wrote:
| I'do have to be able to afford a million plus dollar home
| first during a long running cost of living crisis before I
| could do any such thing.
| Aachen wrote:
| Any roof over your head, or balcony where at least _some_
| solar can be installed to reduce electricity costs, costs
| a million plus USD-equivalent in Australia? That seems...
| unlikely
| Eumenes wrote:
| China isn't gonna run out of coal anytime soon.
| RamRodification wrote:
| The render of the planned solar panel array looks like sci-fi
| art. Very cool (hot?).
|
| Maybe there are already vast fields of solar panels like that,
| and I just haven't seen it before?
| oxym0ron wrote:
| There are actually already fields like that. Look at the ones
| in China or the US. Scaling it up is the next step.
| hengheng wrote:
| From the article, it looks like they are installing 20 GWp of
| solar cells. ("peak power" that is only achieved when the sun is
| right above the solar cells with no atmosphere in between). The
| plan seems to be to store 36-42 GWh, and to deliver 2 GW max.
|
| That makes for a 20h energy storage at full power, and a big
| enough power reserve to recharge that storage during the day
| while delivering at full power. Likely a reserve for
| morning/evening/clouds. Easy to add more storage.
|
| So, it's a 2 GW power link, not a 20 GW power link. It's a 20 GWp
| site, and that's impressive too. At 200 Wp (STC) per sq m, that
| is 100M m2, or a 6 mile square not counting any access roads.
| Huge, but if five of these is all it takes to power Singapore,
| then I guess we're looking at a bright future.
| wmstack wrote:
| > So, it's a 2 GW power link, not a 20 GW power link
|
| Yup, my bad. Title is wrong but I can't change it now. I was
| looking for quick figures and saw the solar capacity numbers
| and put them. It seems only about 1.75 GW are actually planned
| to go through that link.
| MaKey wrote:
| Maybe @dang can help with the title
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Yeah when you look at the amount of road, rail and underwater
| cabling humans have done over the past 50 years, five of those
| seem easy.
| stavros wrote:
| > I guess we're looking at a bright future.
|
| We have to, otherwise the solar panels wouldn't work.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| 36-42GWh storage capacity is absolutely huge. From what I can
| tell, like ten times the size of existing storage plants around
| the world.
| tdrz wrote:
| This sounds good! I don't know much about electricity, can anyone
| tell me if such an undersea power cable could be technically
| feasible between Europe and North America? Possibly taking a
| detour through Iceland which has significant geothermal
| resources.
|
| I understand that it would take much more than just the cable
| between the two continents to make this work - right now there
| are issue on the continents themselves to get the electricity
| from one place to another. But with the sun shining most of the
| time on one of those two continents and with other (hopefully
| renewable) energy sources on either side of the pond, we might
| get to have green and cheap energy!
| topherhunt wrote:
| This is totally unresearched, but my gut says it would be much
| higher ROI for Europe + North America to independently source
| solar from their respective nearby deserts, paired with
| batteries?
| tdrz wrote:
| I would hope Europe has learned a lesson not to depend on
| unreliable partners for its energy.
| xandrius wrote:
| But if it's cheaper, let's take those easy wins and think
| about that later!
| dyauspitr wrote:
| If it's cheaper, vastly cleaner and viable, we shouldn't
| let isolationist cynicism ruin that opportunity. Without
| oil from the Middle East and Russia, a lot of the world
| would grind to halt, but most countries cannot rely on
| their own reserves so the isolationist angle doesn't even
| come up.
| xandrius wrote:
| Sounds like exactly what the seller of commodity X would
| say to me considering not buying commodity X fron them
| anymore when switching to something else.
| michaelt wrote:
| The stability of any country you rely on for power is
| indeed a major concern.
|
| Alas during the previous Trump presidency, Europe saw that
| modern Republican 'America First' thinking doesn't just
| call for a wall with Mexico, a travel ban with Muslim
| countries, and a trade war with China - it also wants a
| trade war with Europe.
|
| And linking the south of Spain to the north of Morocco only
| needs ~200km of undersea cable, rather than the ~6000km an
| EU-to-US link would call for. That's a pretty big benefit.
| csomar wrote:
| > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELMED_interconnector#:~:tex
| t....
|
| This is already in the works and secured financing recently.
| It's a smaller link but it's a start. Also Tunisia trade
| electricity with Libya and Algeria; so technically they could
| be selling electricity to Europe through that link.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Exactly such a project is currently being explored, while a UK-
| Morocco line is continuing development:
|
| https://www.current-news.co.uk/uk-us-transatlantic-interconn...
|
| Weirdly enough the latter is projected to cost less than the
| now infamous Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Given how well the Australian project is going (it's a long
| running project that's already late before even starting) I'm
| convinced that this project will have the same woes which
| comes from the mere fact of being massive long-term
| infrastructure projects and have nothing to do with nuclear
| being special.
|
| By the way, do you know what cost the most money on the HPC
| project? Loan interests, by a very large margin. Because of
| the risk of project failure given the lack of government
| guarantees, they had to borrow at a baffling 9% interest rate
| in a world if zero interest rate. This is the insanity that
| drove the cost to the sky, not the engineering side of
| things.
| joha4270 wrote:
| > By the way, do you know what cost the most money on the
| HPC project? Loan interests, by a very large margin.
|
| That sounds very interesting, do you happen to have a
| source nearby? I would love to have that one in my back
| pocket next time i end up in a discussion on nuclear power.
| Tade0 wrote:
| The engineering side of things caused the delays though,
| which in turn caused cost overruns.
|
| Anyway, in my comment I was referring to the _original_
| estimate of PS22bln, which is higher than the PS18bln for
| that HVDC project and that 's disregarding inflation.
|
| And it's like that with every nuclear power project in
| Europe and the US, save for the one in Belarus, though it
| needs to be said there were some complaints about corner-
| cutting there - seems to be doing fine for now, knocking on
| wood.
| duckmysick wrote:
| > By the way, do you know what cost the most money on the
| HPC project? Loan interests, by a very large margin.
| Because of the risk of project failure given the lack of
| government guarantees, they had to borrow at a baffling 9%
| interest rate in a world if zero interest rate. This is the
| insanity that drove the cost to the sky, not the
| engineering side of things.
|
| This is the first time I've heard of this, so I did a
| little digging.
|
| > Lazard assumes investors want a return of 12% and bond
| holders will accept an interest payment of 8%. These are
| kept standard across all types of generation as the
| intention is not to assess the risk of the project but
| instead the competitiveness of the technology.
|
| > If Hinkley was to pay these commercial rates, the project
| construction with interest would balloon out to close to
| $70b. But they didn't and digging into EDF's financial
| statements shows interest costs related to construction was
| only 1% of capitalised costs in 2017 and 4% in 2021.
|
| https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/nuclear-economics-
| less...
|
| The Finacial Times article from 2023 puts the cost increase
| elsewhere:
|
| > The increase, caused by surges in material prices several
| billion above the most recent estimates, is nearly 80 per
| cent more than the cost of PS18bn in 2016, when EDF first
| started work on the project.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/ae5fb399-08ce-4045-bb70-45a6531a
| c...
|
| And directly from the horse's mouth, in the EDF's status
| update from 2024:
|
| > The costs of completing the project are now estimated at
| between PS31 billion and PS34 billion in 2015 values. The
| cost of civil engineering and the longer duration of the
| electromechanical phase (and its impact on other work) are
| the two main reasons for this cost revision. If the risk of
| an additional delay of 12 months mentioned above in the
| final scenario does materialise it would result in an
| estimated additional cost of around PS1 billion in 2015
| values.
|
| https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-
| sections/journ...
|
| ----
|
| The only reference to the 9% figure you mentioned comes
| from a BBC article from 2018
|
| > However, Dieter Helm, professor of Energy Policy at the
| University of Oxford, told the BBC that the government
| shift made sense.
|
| > "The sheer cost of building new nuclear power stations
| means it makes sense for the government to help finance
| projects like this," he said.
|
| > "Governments can borrow much more cheaply that private
| companies and that lower cost of borrowing can drastically
| reduce the ultimate cost. Hinkley Point C would have been
| roughly half the cost if the government had been borrowing
| the money to build it at 2%, rather than EDF's cost of
| capital, which was 9%."
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44363366
|
| I couldn't verify it anywhere else though. Can you point to
| a source from the EDF that confirms the loan interests cost
| the most money on the Hinkley Point C project?
| scrlk wrote:
| Here's a report from the National Audit Office, which
| appears to be Prof. Dieter Helm's original source:
|
| https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Po...
|
| Part 1.18 (page 22):
|
| > "For example, if we assume the government financed the
| project and required a 2% return (nominal, equivalent to
| its borrowing cost)..."
|
| Part 2.3 (page 27):
|
| > "The investors expect their return on the project to be
| 9.04% over the 60-year operating life of HPC."
|
| Also see Figure 19 on page 65, which summarises the
| different financing options, ranging from 100% state, the
| actual HPC deal, to 100% private.
| joha4270 wrote:
| Real projects has a way of encountering unexpected troubles
| in a way thay paper ones dont.
|
| On top of that there is the energy security problem, even if
| Morocco is less likey than Russia to try and play tricks.
|
| I wish them all luck, but we can't forget the advantages
| projects has before leaving Excel.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Morocco holds a significant chunk of the world's phosphate
| reserves, which are a key component of fertilizers - if
| they weren't a serious partner we would know that by now.
| graemep wrote:
| > On top of that there is the energy security problem, even
| if Morocco is less likey than Russia to try and play
| tricks.
|
| A cable this long will be vulnerable to attack by any
| country that has submarines.
|
| How is it going to be guarded?
| joha4270 wrote:
| Or you know, a cargo ship that can drag an anchor along
| the seabed.
|
| And that guarding, probably by thoughts and prayers, aka
| diddly squat.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Why would you go west to America when you have Africa below?
| Batteries are already cheap enough and getting cheaper that you
| can store 12 hours of electricity
| eru wrote:
| If you just want to move energy between day and night,
| batteries can also do that job.
| m2f2 wrote:
| Significant turning tables moment when big bully China aims at
| being the sole APAC superpower. That might explain why Singapore
| are interested and why 4200km of cable aren't such a big issue.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| Who do you think is manufacturing the solar panels? Certainly
| not Australians.
| csomar wrote:
| Not sure how a 4200km cable is more secure than a few gas
| tanks. I am actually surprised they'd go with this as it's
| impossible to monitor the whole range of the cable.
| seatac76 wrote:
| Will be easy to cut so this isn't really secure.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I'd probably prefer to get cheaper power here in Australia, but
| whatever - no decisions are ever made here to benefit the
| Australian people - it's always to help some vested interest or
| corporate interest or foreign interest or donor to the
| politicians.
|
| So presumably this whole bit of climate theater has a lovely feel
| good story.
| eru wrote:
| As far as Australia is concerned, this is a private investment
| project.
|
| And it does not prevent any other private investment projects
| to generate and sell green electricity to Australians.
| Australia isn't exactly short of sunshine, and the Chinese will
| happily sell you all the solar panels that you could ever want.
| i386 wrote:
| Not sure why this is downvoted. Economic activity should be
| enjoyed by the commons. For example LNG being exported UNDER
| international value and Aussies buying it at international
| prices is idiotic.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Hell yeah! So cool to see Sun Cable progressing.
|
| Australia is obscenely well-positioned to be a solar energy
| powerhouse. So much open and uninhabited land, geologically
| stable and uniquely suited climate with a ton of sun all year
| round.
|
| Could have done it sooner with more political will, etc, etc. But
| I'm so over the whole renewables and climate change debate (still
| very much alive here sadly). We're way beyond the time for
| talking and into the time for action, and seeing this project
| pull us into a more sustainable world is awesome.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| 4,300km of subsea cable...
|
| I'm must completely be missing something. We can't get renewables
| into our own grid let alone over the hemisphere.
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
| vlasky wrote:
| I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being
| taken seriously by our government.
|
| The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link
| - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable
| calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built!
|
| I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I
| shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses.
|
| Back in December 2015, Australia's 290km long undersea Basslink
| cable broke causing the 2016 Tasmanian energy crisis. It took 6
| months to get it working again. Basslink eventually went into
| receivership on 12 November 2021.
|
| Something to ponder.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Tasmanian energy crisis was because of a drought, not because
| the cable was cut. Tassie exports energy and the power company
| had lowered the dam levels selling power to Victoria that year
| expecting regular winter rain. That rain didn't happen. That,
| then combined with the line fault caused the issue. In fact,
| the suspected cause of the line issue was that the power
| company Tassie Hydro zapped the export line with too much
| current trying to make money from Victoria. That combined with
| the lowering of dams, perfect storm of greed and bad luck.
|
| In addition, the boats that service these cables are mostly in
| the northern hemisphere, where most of the undersea cables
| exist. So there was a ~5 month wait on the repair. I'd expect a
| 4000Km cable to have it's own fleet of boats for servicing.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Why would it be superlinear instead of sublinear?
|
| I can understand that the combined probability of breakage
| along the line could be a maintenance problem but the
| construction cost should have many amortizable components that
| deliver some sort of economics of scale.
|
| I haven't done the math so I have no idea on actual viability
| or if it's a good idea or not.
| rmbeard wrote:
| It's a bad idea.
| boringg wrote:
| Its a great sound byte for the politicains. Politicians aren't
| known for the economic and business acumen. Sound bytes and
| promise of jobs get them elected.
|
| Don't know the details of this project but if the cable is
| subsidized by the government it doesn't matter if it scales
| super or sublinearly, taxpayers are on the hook.
| threeseed wrote:
| None of this really applies to Australia.
|
| a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the
| US.
|
| b) They rely heavily on the public service who are
| experienced to do the heavy lifting.
|
| c) The jobs aren't in the areas that matter for Federal
| elections.
| 7952 wrote:
| These kind of projects are getting proposed because the
| business case is painfully simple. Buy electricity cheap and
| sell it high. Its arbitrage. The price difference needs to be
| just enough to pay for the debt that funded construction.
| fidotron wrote:
| That is nothing. Try Chile to China:
|
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...
| jfoster wrote:
| How could that even work? In some areas, surely the Pacific
| Ocean is deeper than any humans or deep ocean vehicles have
| ever been to? So would the cable be hanging across undersea
| chasms, or do they need to find a depth where it can be
| placed?
|
| Also, is it just so heavy that it doesn't need to be secured?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| A great example of bullshit megaprojects that governments
| announce with no real intention of ever implementing. I
| searched and tried to find _something_ recent about this
| project. Pretty much everything I found was around the
| announcement in Nov 2021 - the latest article I found was
| this one from Jan 2022,
| https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/50155-chile-underwater-
| cabl... , which states the project "does not yet have
| feasibility studies or a form of financing".
|
| I also would like a magic pony.
| qbxk wrote:
| They just began running a team of barges down Lake Champlain to
| lay 546km of cable from Quebec to NYC for $4.5B
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champlain_Hudson_Power_Express
| giantg2 wrote:
| I wonder if there are non-energy uses for this that aren't being
| disclosed. Perhaps one could use undersea power cable to
| inductively sense large metal objects that are submerged nearby.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| Somewhere there is a doco about the guys who lay these cables,
| I've forgotten the name, does anyone know it? It has a focus on
| the guy who has his hand on the lever that controls the speed of
| the spool the cable is rolling off. This guy needs to have
| mastered the mysterious art of 'slack control', the intuitive
| understanding of exactly how much cable to drop down to the
| depths of the Atlantic. In my memory of the doco there are only a
| handful of people who do this professionally, and it's not worth
| the hundreds of millions it would cost you to figure out what
| they know not to just hire them at eye watering rates to lift and
| lower the control lever guided by the secrets they know which you
| don't
|
| I feel like I saw it at imax, but it seems an odd topic for an
| imax movie?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-08-21 23:00 UTC)