Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore(pv-tech.org)
pv-tech.org
Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore
https://www.pv-tech.org/australian-government-approves-aapowerlink-project-to-export-solar-to-singapore/
293 comments
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.
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.
When Tassie dams get low, they import power from the mainland. It’s a common seasonal thing. Drought + Basslink outage had the gov buying and running diesel gen at huge cost to keep the grid running. The Basslink outage made a problem a crisis.
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.
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.
It's a bad idea.
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champlain_Hudson_Power_Express
That is nothing. Try Chile to China:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...
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?
Also, is it just so heavy that it doesn't need to be secured?
Deep sea cables don’t need to be secured to anything in the middle they are really heavy and the water isn’t moving quickly.
People setup undersea telegraph cables the 1800’s. This is similar technology just with a thicker cable to carry more current etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable
People setup undersea telegraph cables the 1800’s. This is similar technology just with a thicker cable to carry more current etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable
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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.
I also would like a magic pony.
If they spend $100m on a feasibility study or planning work before getting shit canned for "cost blowouts" someone still got paid.
China could absolutely do this if they want to, but they may well have better things to do with all the aluminium their rapidly expanding factories are producing.
At this scale it's not even mainly financial, it's opportunity cost and geopolitical considerations, on both the pro- and con- side.
At this scale it's not even mainly financial, it's opportunity cost and geopolitical considerations, on both the pro- and con- side.
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People have been stringing cables across the ocean for centuries now. What makes this so much harder?
Power cables are a wee different than communications cables.
Power cables are smaller.
You misunderstand the costs involved. The cable is cheap per km, the cost is largely HVDC equipment at either end.
This is why they aren’t breaking things up into several shorter hops to various islands on the way.
This is why they aren’t breaking things up into several shorter hops to various islands on the way.
DW did a good summary of the Sun Cable Australia-Singapore project https://youtu.be/42b6xJFUSss?t=206
20GW solar farm, 42GWh battery, 3 cables totalling 12,900km of HVDC cable, $23 billion cost.
20GW solar farm, 42GWh battery, 3 cables totalling 12,900km of HVDC cable, $23 billion cost.
> … I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government.
It passed government environmental requirements, a milestone for the (private sector) project’s promoters. Articles should be read a touch more carefully and cynically before jumping to outrage surely?
It passed government environmental requirements, a milestone for the (private sector) project’s promoters. Articles should be read a touch more carefully and cynically before jumping to outrage surely?
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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.
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.
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.
Just wait for one of Aussies famous dust storms to blow thru and scratch all the PV to shit....
Yes. If there’s one thing we Aussies can’t do well, it’s solar. /s
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.
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.
Your politicans, like Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, believe that the laws of Australia trump the laws of Mathematics, in the context of trying to weaken strong encryption. In at least some areas, they need a better education.
Not the best example for a tech savvy person. He had that image as he made a heap of $$ investing in some early internet company, but yeah he didn't seem to actually know what he was doing tech wise.
His real crime was playing a part in destroying the fibre to the premise internet rollout across Australia. He thought he could do it cheaper with mixed copper/coaxial technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/malcolm-turnbu...
I can't imagine how many billions this has cost the country and generally lowered our internet standards.
His real crime was playing a part in destroying the fibre to the premise internet rollout across Australia. He thought he could do it cheaper with mixed copper/coaxial technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/malcolm-turnbu...
I can't imagine how many billions this has cost the country and generally lowered our internet standards.
The laws of Australia do trump the laws of mathematics in that context though?
If the government forces Google to push out a version of FacebookMessenger.apk to the Play Store account belonging to [email protected], which uploads hourly plaintext chat logs to a Google Drive folder that authorities can read, then I'm really not sure what the mathematics of Facebook Messenger's encryption can do?
If the government forces Google to push out a version of FacebookMessenger.apk to the Play Store account belonging to [email protected], which uploads hourly plaintext chat logs to a Google Drive folder that authorities can read, then I'm really not sure what the mathematics of Facebook Messenger's encryption can do?
> a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the US.
As exhibit 'A' for the counterargument, I offer Kate Worden: NT's Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water Security. Did you see her interview in Monday's "Water Grab" report by 4 Corners [1]?
One example of her logic: Farmers are planting circular fields, which is what you do for a central pivot water irrigation system, and Woden is saying with a straight face that irrigation is not being used and the cotton crop is only relying on rainfall with no dams or groundwater extraction involved.
Some choice words from the interview are that she is "sick of the science". There are lots of other goodies.
Her interview is a masterclass in ignorance.
[1] https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners
As exhibit 'A' for the counterargument, I offer Kate Worden: NT's Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water Security. Did you see her interview in Monday's "Water Grab" report by 4 Corners [1]?
One example of her logic: Farmers are planting circular fields, which is what you do for a central pivot water irrigation system, and Woden is saying with a straight face that irrigation is not being used and the cotton crop is only relying on rainfall with no dams or groundwater extraction involved.
Some choice words from the interview are that she is "sick of the science". There are lots of other goodies.
Her interview is a masterclass in ignorance.
[1] https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners
I think you may have missed the qualifier "typically"
Curious if like internet cable - can there be redundancy built?
Also the way data packets go - they can go literally from any of the lines and get assembled together somewhere in the network layer. But same doesn’t hold true for 3 phase power. So same that works for internet wouldn’t be applicable for power distribution.
Also the way data packets go - they can go literally from any of the lines and get assembled together somewhere in the network layer. But same doesn’t hold true for 3 phase power. So same that works for internet wouldn’t be applicable for power distribution.
The DC Cook Straight cable in New Zealand has 3 cables with one spare and one redundant. It can use the earth as a return path though, not sure if you could do that all the way to Singapore. DC doesn't have phases so it's not 3-phase, same with the Sun Cable.
It's not up to the government to determine cost feasibility of a private project.
Perhaps it's similar to the high speed rail projects that get announced and quietly shelved every election season?
Are you a fan of the show Utopia?
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.
I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers or in Indonesia that would make more sense.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Apparently they use thyristors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyristor#HVDC_electricity_tra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_converter#Thyristor_valve...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_converter#Thyristor_valve...
Thyristors require you have at least one transformer operate at AC line frequency (50/60Hz). That costs a lot, since you need enough steel to store 20 milliseconds of your total power as a magnetic field. Thyristors are on-off devices (like most semiconductors when used for power conversion), but cannot turn off without zero current, which precludes a bunch of high frequency designs which are better for harmonics and weight-of-steel.
Overall, they were a popular choice in the 90's and 2010's, but I don't think we'll see any new designs installed with them.
Overall, they were a popular choice in the 90's and 2010's, but I don't think we'll see any new designs installed with them.
Ah - right you are. Seems IGBTs are the thing now.
I've never heard of MOSFETs being used in extra-high voltage systems, but I have not been following the industry for a while. Do you have any links? I've only seen IGBTs or older technology used.
Why higher voltages can result in cheaper insulation materials? Wouldn’t it be the opposite?
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.
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.
Would they be using AC or DC? I heard that very long cables using AC can be more lossy
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
That principle doesn't work as well at high voltages because generally it's a pain for a rack of equipment (such as solar panels) to have a potential between them and ground of 1 million volts.
Yup, high voltage has special challenges because even super tiny leakage currents (which are normal unless extreme precautions are taken) transmit significant power and cause extreme breakdowns rather quickly in most materials.
At very high (million+ volts) we’re talking even quantum tunneling effects producing enough current to cause material breakdowns. It’s pretty nuts.
It’s a big reason why glass and ceramic are so commonly used at those voltages as insulators - they are one of the few materials stable enough and electrically insulating enough to last long term.
Splitting things up like being discussed works when it’s possible to do so without creating even more leakage current paths, which is extremely difficult to do with sizable equipment in the million+ volt range. Folks eventually were able to do so, which is why HVDC eventually became a thing, but it is far from easy or cheap. My understanding is almost all HVDC lines run at lower voltages than their equivalent AC counterparts do as well, due to these technical limitations.
HVDC currently tends to be used for longer runs, where AC inductive losses exceed the equivalent capital costs challenges HVDC has. AC has significant inductive loss issues when run under ground or undersea.
At low voltages, those same leakage currents can’t transmit enough power to damage things or even cause measurable power losses, so don’t matter.
These effects starts being noticable in the > 1kv range, significant in the > 10kv range, quite problematic in the > 100kv range, and very difficult (maybe impossible using known material science in some scenarios) to deal with in the >= 1MV range.
Semiconductors have the added challenge that they often have noticeable leakage currents even in the low voltage ranges (even with specialized designs) and it makes it even harder.
[https://www.nationalgrid.com/sites/default/files/documents/1...]
Additionally, Arc faults in DC transmission infrastructure are extremely difficult to control, as unlike AC there is no zero-voltage crossing point (as there is no waveform, in general). So unlike AC, arcs are not likely to self extinguish, and require complete interruption of current flow. Which is actually a really hard problem to solve for several reasons at the power levels involved here.
At very high (million+ volts) we’re talking even quantum tunneling effects producing enough current to cause material breakdowns. It’s pretty nuts.
It’s a big reason why glass and ceramic are so commonly used at those voltages as insulators - they are one of the few materials stable enough and electrically insulating enough to last long term.
Splitting things up like being discussed works when it’s possible to do so without creating even more leakage current paths, which is extremely difficult to do with sizable equipment in the million+ volt range. Folks eventually were able to do so, which is why HVDC eventually became a thing, but it is far from easy or cheap. My understanding is almost all HVDC lines run at lower voltages than their equivalent AC counterparts do as well, due to these technical limitations.
HVDC currently tends to be used for longer runs, where AC inductive losses exceed the equivalent capital costs challenges HVDC has. AC has significant inductive loss issues when run under ground or undersea.
At low voltages, those same leakage currents can’t transmit enough power to damage things or even cause measurable power losses, so don’t matter.
These effects starts being noticable in the > 1kv range, significant in the > 10kv range, quite problematic in the > 100kv range, and very difficult (maybe impossible using known material science in some scenarios) to deal with in the >= 1MV range.
Semiconductors have the added challenge that they often have noticeable leakage currents even in the low voltage ranges (even with specialized designs) and it makes it even harder.
[https://www.nationalgrid.com/sites/default/files/documents/1...]
Additionally, Arc faults in DC transmission infrastructure are extremely difficult to control, as unlike AC there is no zero-voltage crossing point (as there is no waveform, in general). So unlike AC, arcs are not likely to self extinguish, and require complete interruption of current flow. Which is actually a really hard problem to solve for several reasons at the power levels involved here.
This is Australia, it's AC/DC!
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)
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)
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.
What material is made the power cable ? I thought copper was getting more and more expensive ?
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.
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.
Thanks for the reply
> 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.
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.
Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.
> 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.
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.
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.
50% of Australia lives in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Having a nuclear power plant for each would make sense. Melbourne would make the most sense first as it gets a lot less sun than the others.
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The South East of the country has some decent sized metro areas that aren't too far away from each other.
Nuclear power plants, which have been successfully used for decades, are “unrealistic” now?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think that's actually true. US Navy and their contracting shipyards had consistently built nuclear subs in 3 year strides for decades. One set of fuel lasts is good for 1/5th century, after that the sub needs to be cut up and refueled. It's not something that take years after years of permitting and change of plans and suspected acts of arson of unknown motivation if it's literally operated by US Army or Navy(but not NASA).
Solar power is just amateures littering compared to that.
Solar power is just amateures littering compared to that.
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"
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"
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.
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.
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.
Nuclear safety events are rare, rarely fatal, but can be very large in impacted area.
Sure, please adjust the numbers for when we had to evacuate cities for nuclear scares. You can do calculations in 'quality adjusted life years' or some other ways to convert deaths and injuries and the cost of evacuations. It doesn't really change any conclusions, even with very pessimistic estimates. I just picked deaths, because they are relatively easy to get clear numbers for.
And don't get me wrong: solar is mostly fine anyway. It's coal that's really obnoxious. Both in the mining and in the burning, and in the accidents. (And to a lesser degree other fossil fuels.)
Photovoltaic is great! On a purely technical level both solar and nuclear can work well, nuclear perhaps a bit better and we had the technology for longer. On a practical level, solar will win, because people fear nuclear.
All electricity generation methods have engineering challenges. Eg solar has some big problems with daily variations and seasonal ones. We can solve the former with batteries, and the latter via big cables to (sub-) tropical regions.
Wind is also great! And we've only just started tapping waves and tides, too. And geothermal.
And don't get me wrong: solar is mostly fine anyway. It's coal that's really obnoxious. Both in the mining and in the burning, and in the accidents. (And to a lesser degree other fossil fuels.)
Photovoltaic is great! On a purely technical level both solar and nuclear can work well, nuclear perhaps a bit better and we had the technology for longer. On a practical level, solar will win, because people fear nuclear.
All electricity generation methods have engineering challenges. Eg solar has some big problems with daily variations and seasonal ones. We can solve the former with batteries, and the latter via big cables to (sub-) tropical regions.
Wind is also great! And we've only just started tapping waves and tides, too. And geothermal.
Hydro dam failures can cause mass destruction and evacuations of entire cities. Nuclear is not unique in this aspect.
I didn't say it was unique in this aspect; it's a difference between nuclear (and hydro) versus solar.
nuclear safety has changed a lot. even though "walkaway-safe passively cooled" is not a technical term, but that's the design goal nowadays.
the real problem with nuclear is that the market is small, fragmented, US regulations are bad (as I elaborated upthread), so there's no real volume, no economies of scale, no healthy competition and there's basically no innovation even around the safety critical core...
the real problem with nuclear is that the market is small, fragmented, US regulations are bad (as I elaborated upthread), so there's no real volume, no economies of scale, no healthy competition and there's basically no innovation even around the safety critical core...
That isn't entirely fair.
1) The risk of evacuations happening is tiny and I'm not even convinced it is still a factor. We've not yet seen a messy meltdown of any plant designed and built after Chernobyl in 1986 and designs have changed a lot since then.
2) We don't know what a large-scale solar disaster looks like yet, but they might happen. For example I recall the Wikipedia page for the Year Without Summer [0] - we know that sometimes nature puts things in the atmosphere that might hamper solar in a way that nuclear can be designed around. IE, we might find we now have a risk of our power stations just deciding to produce less one year because of a usually unrelated disaster. Or maybe even stop if there is enough volcanic ash.
Plus renewable projects have had a more noticeable association with grid failures and mishaps than nuclear projects. We really don't have much experience with what mass solar failures (if they do exist, but they probably do) look like or how common they are.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
1) The risk of evacuations happening is tiny and I'm not even convinced it is still a factor. We've not yet seen a messy meltdown of any plant designed and built after Chernobyl in 1986 and designs have changed a lot since then.
2) We don't know what a large-scale solar disaster looks like yet, but they might happen. For example I recall the Wikipedia page for the Year Without Summer [0] - we know that sometimes nature puts things in the atmosphere that might hamper solar in a way that nuclear can be designed around. IE, we might find we now have a risk of our power stations just deciding to produce less one year because of a usually unrelated disaster. Or maybe even stop if there is enough volcanic ash.
Plus renewable projects have had a more noticeable association with grid failures and mishaps than nuclear projects. We really don't have much experience with what mass solar failures (if they do exist, but they probably do) look like or how common they are.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
It's not fair to point out very real impacts of Nuclear failures. But it's fair to compare to hypothetical-yet-to-occur "Mass Solar failures".
Solar relies on Light, just like life does. So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?
Solar relies on Light, just like life does. So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?
People can point it out, no worries. Disasters happen. But it isn't fair to claim that the risks of a nuclear disaster are worse than solar one. We haven't seen what a big solar disaster looks like yet because it has been a serious contender for ~5-10 years and it takes a few decades to figure out what a disaster looks like for any given form of power generation. For solar it could easily be quite bad and impossible to design out.
We have, to date, 0 methods of generating electricity at scale that are free of catastrophic failure modes. Solar will not be free of them either, and we don't really have the data yet to figure out how they compare relevant to nuclear ones (which, on balance, are the mildest of all the tested options!). It could do well, it could do badly, but it is not entirely fair to compare a known low risk in nuclear to an unknown risk in solar.
> So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?
No, I'm not. I included a wiki link to the sort of thing I think could be a problem. It doesn't mention extinction.
We have, to date, 0 methods of generating electricity at scale that are free of catastrophic failure modes. Solar will not be free of them either, and we don't really have the data yet to figure out how they compare relevant to nuclear ones (which, on balance, are the mildest of all the tested options!). It could do well, it could do badly, but it is not entirely fair to compare a known low risk in nuclear to an unknown risk in solar.
> So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?
No, I'm not. I included a wiki link to the sort of thing I think could be a problem. It doesn't mention extinction.
But there was only evidence of a reduction in temperature in your link. Which would actually increase the effectiveness of Solar.
The idea of a global darkness for a significant period of time, would be extinction level.
The idea of a global darkness for a significant period of time, would be extinction level.
It was 1812; they'd barely discovered how to generate electricity. But note that they describe effects like a persistent dry fog dimming sunlight over NA. That would have an effect on solar production and that was half a world away from the eruption.
> The idea of a global darkness for a significant period of time, would be extinction level.
Your scenario not mine; and I don't know why it needs to be global. I'm talking a 12-month period with much less sunshine than normal. A scenario which other sources of power would be independent of but that solar would be very correlated with. Since the nuclear disasters we've seen so far can be escaped by walking away from them slowly, that sort of rare volcanic event influencing solar production would probably be more damaging than a nuclear plant meltdown. It could kill a lot of people.
It is similar to Fukushima where the fact that they had an unsafe nuclear plant that maybe roughly doubled the damage caused by the tsunami that hit Japan. Heavy solar use might do something similar with big volcanic eruptions. We don't really know because we've never tried mass solar use before so it is a bit hard to judge how bad catastrophic failures are vs. nuclear.
> The idea of a global darkness for a significant period of time, would be extinction level.
Your scenario not mine; and I don't know why it needs to be global. I'm talking a 12-month period with much less sunshine than normal. A scenario which other sources of power would be independent of but that solar would be very correlated with. Since the nuclear disasters we've seen so far can be escaped by walking away from them slowly, that sort of rare volcanic event influencing solar production would probably be more damaging than a nuclear plant meltdown. It could kill a lot of people.
It is similar to Fukushima where the fact that they had an unsafe nuclear plant that maybe roughly doubled the damage caused by the tsunami that hit Japan. Heavy solar use might do something similar with big volcanic eruptions. We don't really know because we've never tried mass solar use before so it is a bit hard to judge how bad catastrophic failures are vs. nuclear.
Because we have power lines and batteries now, so solar can be where the sun is, and consumption can be where it isn't.
I guess I'm envisioning a future where there is a lot more solar panels than there is consumption, meaning we can store for later or transmit to places that cannot generate themselves.
I guess I'm envisioning a future where there is a lot more solar panels than there is consumption, meaning we can store for later or transmit to places that cannot generate themselves.
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?
You can check some numbers (and sources) at https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
I don't see solar mentioned on this page. And according to data found in a sibling comment, they are practically similar (0.03 nuclear vs 0.02 solar).
Maybe I read it wrong, but I don't see anything supporting the statement: "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."
Maybe I read it wrong, but I don't see anything supporting the statement: "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."
Some comparisons of power generation by deaths here: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
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.
Is there a link between Solar production and Cancer? I mean there is a super obvious one with Nuclear.
Silicon Valley is full of cancer causing superfund sites due to improper disposal of chemicals used to produce semiconductors back in the 70’s and 80’s.
Solar panels are semiconductor based (the actual power generating parts are diodes, specifically).
If the chemicals are disposed of properly and workers wear the correct PPE, there are no measurable increases in cancer.
It’s a whole grab bag of chemicals, from TCE, Chromic Acid, Crystalline Silica, etc. etc. 130+ common ones with significant carcinogenic potential.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209379112...]
It’s similar to Nuclear. If proper precautions are followed? No increased risk.
If not, well - I’m unaware of any of the actinides that are good for anyone to be around. For starters.
Solar panels are semiconductor based (the actual power generating parts are diodes, specifically).
If the chemicals are disposed of properly and workers wear the correct PPE, there are no measurable increases in cancer.
It’s a whole grab bag of chemicals, from TCE, Chromic Acid, Crystalline Silica, etc. etc. 130+ common ones with significant carcinogenic potential.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209379112...]
It’s similar to Nuclear. If proper precautions are followed? No increased risk.
If not, well - I’m unaware of any of the actinides that are good for anyone to be around. For starters.
Thanks for bringing up the concrete example of Silicon Valley's chemicals.
Btw, just to be clear: overall both solar power and nuclear are very good technologies in terms of overall harm done per Joule produced. Much, much better than coal or oil. But we shouldn't pretend that the harm per Joule is literally zero; and we should also be honest about what harm there actually is, and not just what sounds plausible or good.
Btw, just to be clear: overall both solar power and nuclear are very good technologies in terms of overall harm done per Joule produced. Much, much better than coal or oil. But we shouldn't pretend that the harm per Joule is literally zero; and we should also be honest about what harm there actually is, and not just what sounds plausible or good.
What is that 'super obvious' link of cancer with nuclear power?
There's lots of dangerous chemicals involved in both the production of solar panels (and semiconductor technology in general) and also in the production of nuclear fuel. And those have to be handled carefully and responsibly, to avoid causing problems like cancer.
Note: I'm deliberately not talking about radiation, because it's basically not a factor. You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels. Working as an airplane flight attendant (or even at the top of a really tall building or on a mountain) is much more dangerous in that regard.
According to https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses even just living in Denver exposes you to a lot more radiation, because of the altitude.
There's lots of dangerous chemicals involved in both the production of solar panels (and semiconductor technology in general) and also in the production of nuclear fuel. And those have to be handled carefully and responsibly, to avoid causing problems like cancer.
Note: I'm deliberately not talking about radiation, because it's basically not a factor. You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels. Working as an airplane flight attendant (or even at the top of a really tall building or on a mountain) is much more dangerous in that regard.
According to https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses even just living in Denver exposes you to a lot more radiation, because of the altitude.
Radiation destroys DNA and directly causes cancer. That's the super obvious link. Your deliberate avoidance doesn't change that fact.
Because of this are a bunch of safety protocols in the extraction, transportation, storage and use of radio active materials and their waste products.
100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.
> You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Because of this are a bunch of safety protocols in the extraction, transportation, storage and use of radio active materials and their waste products.
100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.
> You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Don’t bet on that plutonium toxicity thing. For one, most reactors aren’t going to have any plutonium (or any other radioisotope) where anyone can touch it or interact with it in any way.
Concentrated Hydroflouric acid, and even pure fluorine gas however? That can be an easy turn of a tap away at most semiconductor plants. And much worse. And if you know anything about Florine, ‘much worse’ should be pretty chilling.
I’m honestly not sure if radiation poisoning (actually quite hard and rare to die from) is worse than dying from fluorine exposure (I’m sure it’s killed a lot more people than radiation), but fluorine is certainly going to be faster.
Most fire departments are going to be a lot more concerned about a semiconductor plant than a nuclear one.
Concentrated Hydroflouric acid, and even pure fluorine gas however? That can be an easy turn of a tap away at most semiconductor plants. And much worse. And if you know anything about Florine, ‘much worse’ should be pretty chilling.
I’m honestly not sure if radiation poisoning (actually quite hard and rare to die from) is worse than dying from fluorine exposure (I’m sure it’s killed a lot more people than radiation), but fluorine is certainly going to be faster.
Most fire departments are going to be a lot more concerned about a semiconductor plant than a nuclear one.
But choosing nuclear power doesn't remove our need for semiconductors, so it's a bit weird to attribute that to solar.
The fabrication of of panels is more analogous to fission material mining. As in you are procuring the materials that will produce energy in the future.
If we get rid of nuclear power, we don't need to mine those things anymore. If we get rid of solar panels, we still need semiconductors. So I don't think you can use it for an argument against solar manufacture.
The fabrication of of panels is more analogous to fission material mining. As in you are procuring the materials that will produce energy in the future.
If we get rid of nuclear power, we don't need to mine those things anymore. If we get rid of solar panels, we still need semiconductors. So I don't think you can use it for an argument against solar manufacture.
> 100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.
So?
You have to look at the amount of chemicals required to produce 1 Joule (or perhaps to install one 1 Watt of capacity).
For example, 1 kg of coal is much less dangerous than 1 kg of uranium. But you need much, much more than 1kg of coal to replace 1 kg of uranium.
Similar for solar power: you need to normalise the amount (and 'badness') of waste by the amount of energy produced. Semi-conductor manufacturing isn't exactly like organic farming, you know?
The best example is perhaps hydro-power: 1 kg of fresh water is basically the most harmless substance you can think of. But you need enormous amounts of water to produce reasonable amounts of electricity. And in these huge quantities water can become dangerous.
> > You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
> So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Huh? Fukushima was not a normally operating nuclear power plant. Yes, accidents happen. That's why I'm suggesting to look at the impact of accidents per Joule produced (or per Watt of installed capacity, depending on context).
Nuclear power has had only a handful of accidents and lots and lots of Joule produced.
So?
You have to look at the amount of chemicals required to produce 1 Joule (or perhaps to install one 1 Watt of capacity).
For example, 1 kg of coal is much less dangerous than 1 kg of uranium. But you need much, much more than 1kg of coal to replace 1 kg of uranium.
Similar for solar power: you need to normalise the amount (and 'badness') of waste by the amount of energy produced. Semi-conductor manufacturing isn't exactly like organic farming, you know?
The best example is perhaps hydro-power: 1 kg of fresh water is basically the most harmless substance you can think of. But you need enormous amounts of water to produce reasonable amounts of electricity. And in these huge quantities water can become dangerous.
> > You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
> So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Huh? Fukushima was not a normally operating nuclear power plant. Yes, accidents happen. That's why I'm suggesting to look at the impact of accidents per Joule produced (or per Watt of installed capacity, depending on context).
Nuclear power has had only a handful of accidents and lots and lots of Joule produced.
Right so pick a metric that highly favours nuclear because its been around longer.
And ignore common sense that leaving inert rocks in the sun is fundamentally less dangerous than super heating water with highly toxic and unstable materials.
If you can't see your bias here, I don't think I am going to change your mind.
Even by your joule measure, give it time, Solar will beat that too. And even if the largest solar farm in existence started to fail or "not operate normally" we would not have to replace the top soil or bury it in sand for 20,000 years.
And ignore common sense that leaving inert rocks in the sun is fundamentally less dangerous than super heating water with highly toxic and unstable materials.
If you can't see your bias here, I don't think I am going to change your mind.
Even by your joule measure, give it time, Solar will beat that too. And even if the largest solar farm in existence started to fail or "not operate normally" we would not have to replace the top soil or bury it in sand for 20,000 years.
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)
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.
If we had the renewables to replace the coal politicians would love it to retire in a heartbeat. The reason it’s sticking it around longer is because politicians fear the backlash from blackouts and high prices more than the backlash from the bad PR of delaying closures of coal.
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.
Data Centers, Green Steel production. Power == Opportunities. This is such a massive win for the environment.
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.
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.
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-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxide#Production
[2] https://www.mining.com/web/aluminum-price-hits-13-year-high-...
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%.
Ha! It figures. Further down that thread I wrote: "Also, I'm notorious for dropping three orders of magnitude when doing mental math using kilo/mega/giga/tera prefixes."
Turns out when you do the math right, Aluminium _is_ frozen electricity.
Turns out when you do the math right, Aluminium _is_ frozen electricity.
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...
Australia famously is not a good place to manufacture anyways because the “resource curse” makes AUD expensive and exports noncompetitive.
Can you expand on this, I don't see how it can be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
Natural resource sales send USD to Australia. AUD is now worth more because it is backed by more USD. Manufactured exports are also traded in USD, so Australian exports become much more expensive because workers and local materials are paid for in AUD.
Natural resource sales send USD to Australia. AUD is now worth more because it is backed by more USD. Manufactured exports are also traded in USD, so Australian exports become much more expensive because workers and local materials are paid for in AUD.
You need water for all of that and that part of Australia is pretty arid.
With cheap energy, desalination might make economic sense for Australia.
Might finally provide a viable use for the Ord River catchment, though ..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
I recall reading Singapores energy rules say this cable can't supply more then 15% of Singapore's requirements, presumably to protect against that.
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.
Presumably those in Singapore have a lot more buying power though. And the politics are more favourable for big capital investment projects.
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.
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?
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?
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?
> 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.
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.
the country has a big housing affordability issue.
But the majority of Singaporeans live in public housing where rent is adjusted for income based via a grant system?
Not quite.
The vast majority of Singaporeans live in apartments they own, and don't pay rent. However you are right that most of these apartments were built by an arm of the government, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board
There are grants for lower income people to make it easier for them to buy a home. Some people also rent directly from the government, but that's the exception. Most own.
Housing ain't cheap in Singapore. Whether you measure that in terms of rent, or in terms of monthly mortgage costs, or in terms of the opportunity cost of capital (for those who own their homes outright). As everywhere else in the world that's mostly a function of supply and demand, and where that supply comes from (public, private, etc) doesn't really matter too much.
Singapore has been building a lot of housing, and is still building a lot of housing. Both by public and private developers. But we are living on a small island with lots of people, and thanks mostly to immigration our population is still growing. (I myself am an immigrant here.)
The vast majority of Singaporeans live in apartments they own, and don't pay rent. However you are right that most of these apartments were built by an arm of the government, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board
There are grants for lower income people to make it easier for them to buy a home. Some people also rent directly from the government, but that's the exception. Most own.
Housing ain't cheap in Singapore. Whether you measure that in terms of rent, or in terms of monthly mortgage costs, or in terms of the opportunity cost of capital (for those who own their homes outright). As everywhere else in the world that's mostly a function of supply and demand, and where that supply comes from (public, private, etc) doesn't really matter too much.
Singapore has been building a lot of housing, and is still building a lot of housing. Both by public and private developers. But we are living on a small island with lots of people, and thanks mostly to immigration our population is still growing. (I myself am an immigrant here.)
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.
Shopping calculations for them need not be about economic cost benefit analysis.
> 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?
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?
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.
Reserves are cash in hand and represent immediate and hard spending power.
> Prestige, signalling, membership to exclusive club, etc dominate the consideration.
So? These _benefits_ also fit into a bog standard cost/benefit analysis. For example, Singapore would need to weight this project against buying everyone a luxury handbag..
Btw, in any case keep in mind that the project is privately financed and will make money selling electricity to Singaporeans. The electrons that power my gadgets at home don't have any colour, so I can't even tell if my electricity comes from a particularly prestigious source. It's all intermediated by the wholesale market.
> Reserves are cash in hand and represent immediate and hard spending power.
That's about on the same level as arguing that having a money printing press represents raw spending power.
Most central banks around the world conduct monetary policy via domestic interest rates and affect these interest rates by buying and selling domestic government bonds. Thus they will have lots of government bonds on their balance sheet. But it doesn't mean that they can just take these bonds and use them to buy solar farms.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is (almost?) unique in foregoing interest rate as a channel of monetary policy, and instead working via the foreign exchange rate. They affect the foreign exchange rate by buying foreign currencies via freshly minted Singapore dollars (or selling them to remove Singapore dollars from the market).
And just like the American Fed keeps the government bonds they buy on their balance sheet (and pretty much has to!), our Monetary Authority of Singapore keeps the foreign currency on the balance sheet, and they show up as reserves.
By design, Singapore has at least as much in foreign exchange reserves as we issued domestic currency.
In a sense, most of the eg Euros in our reserves are already 'spent', but they are spent in the form of SGD in circulation. (I say 'most', because we have more reserves than we issued SGD. Singapore is cautious like that.)
So? These _benefits_ also fit into a bog standard cost/benefit analysis. For example, Singapore would need to weight this project against buying everyone a luxury handbag..
Btw, in any case keep in mind that the project is privately financed and will make money selling electricity to Singaporeans. The electrons that power my gadgets at home don't have any colour, so I can't even tell if my electricity comes from a particularly prestigious source. It's all intermediated by the wholesale market.
> Reserves are cash in hand and represent immediate and hard spending power.
That's about on the same level as arguing that having a money printing press represents raw spending power.
Most central banks around the world conduct monetary policy via domestic interest rates and affect these interest rates by buying and selling domestic government bonds. Thus they will have lots of government bonds on their balance sheet. But it doesn't mean that they can just take these bonds and use them to buy solar farms.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is (almost?) unique in foregoing interest rate as a channel of monetary policy, and instead working via the foreign exchange rate. They affect the foreign exchange rate by buying foreign currencies via freshly minted Singapore dollars (or selling them to remove Singapore dollars from the market).
And just like the American Fed keeps the government bonds they buy on their balance sheet (and pretty much has to!), our Monetary Authority of Singapore keeps the foreign currency on the balance sheet, and they show up as reserves.
By design, Singapore has at least as much in foreign exchange reserves as we issued domestic currency.
In a sense, most of the eg Euros in our reserves are already 'spent', but they are spent in the form of SGD in circulation. (I say 'most', because we have more reserves than we issued SGD. Singapore is cautious like that.)
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Indonesia probably has enough land for its own panels.
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).
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).
Indonesia is possibly the best place on the world for floating PV at sea (rather than inland lakes as it usually is).
I'm guessing you've never actually been at sea in the region during the tropical monsoon | the annual cyclone season.
I'll bow to your local knowledge Captain Ahab, but bear in mind that being near the equator both maximises sun and avoids tropical storms.
See map for traces of storms:
https://reliefweb.int/attachments/da3ff0e6-13fc-311c-b9b1-dd...
Bonus challenge, can you find Japan, who are piloting this tech, on that map. They're in there somewhere under the squiggles.
See map for traces of storms:
https://reliefweb.int/attachments/da3ff0e6-13fc-311c-b9b1-dd...
Bonus challenge, can you find Japan, who are piloting this tech, on that map. They're in there somewhere under the squiggles.
Kick the snark down a few notches and maybe realise that cyclonic storm tracks aren't the limit of rough seas that result.
I don't hunt whales but I do have first hand direct experience of marine engineering in exactly that region.
I don't hunt whales but I do have first hand direct experience of marine engineering in exactly that region.
Most people outside of the pacific have no idea about monsoon effects on local weather/functions.
Is anyone floating solar panels in the ocean? That sounds tough, but obviously worth exploring.
It's at pilot stage in various places. Japan is leading on this, as they did in floating voltaics generally.
Places with offshore wind are also looking at it as a way to share cables.
Places with offshore wind are also looking at it as a way to share cables.
I do not believe that we can design a system that will withstand waves and wind from tropical monsoons or even most tropical storms or cyclones in the pacific. I can't speak for other oceans or areas of the world, but I believe that this design requirement will probably make it a non starter.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
A cable this long will be vulnerable to attack by any country that has submarines.
How is it going to be guarded?
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.
And that guarding, probably by thoughts and prayers, aka diddly squat.
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.
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.
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 £22bln, which is higher than the £18bln 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.
Anyway, in my comment I was referring to the original estimate of £22bln, which is higher than the £18bln 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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 £18bn in 2016, when EDF first started work on the project.
https://www.ft.com/content/ae5fb399-08ce-4045-bb70-45a6531ac...
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 £31 billion and £34 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 £1 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?
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 £18bn in 2016, when EDF first started work on the project.
https://www.ft.com/content/ae5fb399-08ce-4045-bb70-45a6531ac...
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 £31 billion and £34 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 £1 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?
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.
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.
> Also see Figure 19 on page 65, which summarises the different financing options, ranging from 100% state, the actual HPC deal, to 100% private.
Notice how the table of different outcomes shows changes in cost to taxpayers/government, returns, and the strike price. It doesn't show changes to the total construction cost itself, which is presumably fixed no matter what the financing option is. If the grandparent comment was correct, the table would have shown a different construction cost for different financing options.
All that's different is the strike price - which makes sense.
Notice how the table of different outcomes shows changes in cost to taxpayers/government, returns, and the strike price. It doesn't show changes to the total construction cost itself, which is presumably fixed no matter what the financing option is. If the grandparent comment was correct, the table would have shown a different construction cost for different financing options.
All that's different is the strike price - which makes sense.
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
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?
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELMED_interconnector#:~:text....
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.
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.
I would hope Europe has learned a lesson not to depend on unreliable partners for its energy.
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.
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.
But if it's cheaper, let's take those easy wins and think about that later!
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.
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.
If you just want to move energy between day and night, batteries can also do that job.
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.
> "... 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.
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.
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.
I keep seeing stuff about the viability of the cable being laid. The thing that gets me though, is the timezone shift around peak solar generation is the wrong way around. In Australia at least, peak demand is in the evening, when people get home and turn on their ACs, or cooking devices etc. I don't know about the demand patterns in Singapore, but given their heavy use of AC, I imagine their demand for power does not peter off in the evening much.
Meanwhile the peak of solar generation around midday in Australia is being sent off to Singapore in the morning who are a couple hours behind us. Presumably the morning is when the least AC will be used there. By the evening in Singapore, it'll be night in Central Australia, meaning there will still have to be plenty of peaking generation or, will need a massive ton of batteries which has still not quite there for grid scaling.
Meanwhile the peak of solar generation around midday in Australia is being sent off to Singapore in the morning who are a couple hours behind us. Presumably the morning is when the least AC will be used there. By the evening in Singapore, it'll be night in Central Australia, meaning there will still have to be plenty of peaking generation or, will need a massive ton of batteries which has still not quite there for grid scaling.
There are batteries included as part of this project. So I don't think time really matters.
Yes, but will it wipe out the advantage of solar by adding cost to the generation capacity? As I said, batteries still aren't cheap, and their replacement lifetime is still not good. We could rely on future technology, but is that a sound investment plan?
If this project is viable, then it'll probably be more viable to have a massive solar farm coming from India, where the timezone shift is in the correct direction, and it would outcompete Australia.
If this project is viable, then it'll probably be more viable to have a massive solar farm coming from India, where the timezone shift is in the correct direction, and it would outcompete Australia.
I think any project is going to need some form of capacitor as a grid would just become unstable if you dump a huge amount of peak solar onto it without the consumption.
So either way you need batteries, and all the problems they bring. Just about "how many".
So either way you need batteries, and all the problems they bring. Just about "how many".
Sure, but that how many is a critical factor in the overall cost of energy delivered
Is it? That's the thing we literally mass produce in factories. I think it's the machinery to do voltage conversions and transmission that is the critical cost factor.
From a competitive point of view, yes. The conversion hardware is common in both cases, the difference is one side needs more storage than the other. As others have stated, with the propagation of EV voltage conversion equipment, that's essentially mass manufactured too now.
Edit: I'd also like to add that for something cheap and mass manufactured that we shouldn't concern ourselves with, we sure don't have a lot of it on a grid that already delivers some of the most expensive power in the world. ie one that should be able to afford it a lot more than others
Edit: I'd also like to add that for something cheap and mass manufactured that we shouldn't concern ourselves with, we sure don't have a lot of it on a grid that already delivers some of the most expensive power in the world. ie one that should be able to afford it a lot more than others
Perth time == Singapore time. I bet you're use to living on the east coast.
Central timezone, actually. Perth is not part of the NEM, and pretty sure the plan for this is coming out of the Northern Territory
Yeah, looks like you're right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link
I did originally see a graphic which showed somewhere around Broome as the connection point.
I did originally see a graphic which showed somewhere around Broome as the connection point.
This is still backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian, isn’t it? Not mentioned in article but:
“May 2023, a consortium led by Cannon-Brookes' Grok Ventures won the bid to acquire Sun Cable,[7] with the takeover finalised on 7 September 2023. The revised plans involve supplying electricity to Darwin by 2030, and to Singapore a few years thereafter. ”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link
“May 2023, a consortium led by Cannon-Brookes' Grok Ventures won the bid to acquire Sun Cable,[7] with the takeover finalised on 7 September 2023. The revised plans involve supplying electricity to Darwin by 2030, and to Singapore a few years thereafter. ”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link
I am curious about a couple of things to do with this project. Given the solar panels will cover about 30,000 acres of land [0], and a factory is being built to manufacture the panels (because there are so many), how will decommissioning of the solar farm be done at end of life? How does one process that many panels in an environmentally friendly way? It sounds like another factory will need to be built to process the waste.
I hope that the decommissioning of this kind of solar farm is better managed thant the likes of the Northern Endeavour FPSO, where Woodside offloaded it to a small company to dodge the decommissioning costs of the field, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link [1] https://www.industry.gov.au/mining-oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas/o...
I hope that the decommissioning of this kind of solar farm is better managed thant the likes of the Northern Endeavour FPSO, where Woodside offloaded it to a small company to dodge the decommissioning costs of the field, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link [1] https://www.industry.gov.au/mining-oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas/o...
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?
Maybe there are already vast fields of solar panels like that, and I just haven't seen it before?
There are actually already fields like that. Look at the ones in China or the US. Scaling it up is the next step.
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?
I feel like I saw it at imax, but it seems an odd topic for an imax movie?
Give it a rest already with the default cynicism, we need more bold record breaking large green infrastructure bets to help get us out of this mess that years of conservative policy has caused in the first place.
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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.
So presumably this whole bit of climate theater has a lovely feel good story.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Who do you think is manufacturing the solar panels? Certainly not Australians.
Will be easy to cut so this isn’t really secure.
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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/
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/
It's vastly more simple to run one cable through the ocean than run heaps of high voltage lines between all the remote renewable generation sites and the consumers. Even with the solar built into a suburb, you need to built much thicker connections to transfer it to other consumers than what you do in the old generation system.
Distributed grids are complicated.
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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.
How much copper would you need for a 4,300km 2GW subsea cable?
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.
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.
Interestingly, Australia is amongst the world's biggest exporters of Bauxite, which pretty much just needs electricity to turn it into Aluminium.
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.
With a typical HVDC line not exceeding 1200mm2 conductor cross section it's about 13k tonnes, so 0,025% of global aluminium production.
At $1.127/lb of aluminum that only comes out to a bit less than $30,000 for the raw materials. That's astounding.
There's a lot more to a HVDC line than just the conductor, but ballpark estimate for a 1GW line is $1mln/km - scales accordingly with power.
Still, you could wrap the world around at the equator with this for a paltry $40bln. Now scale that 10x and you have yourself a practical global grid solution for what, $400bln? That's less than half the US military budget - absolutely doable if you get enough economies on board.
Still, you could wrap the world around at the equator with this for a paltry $40bln. Now scale that 10x and you have yourself a practical global grid solution for what, $400bln? That's less than half the US military budget - absolutely doable if you get enough economies on board.
I think you forgot to multiply pounds / 2000 = tons
> not exceeding 1200m2 conductor cross section
Technically right but I think you mean 1200mm2 (a radius of approx 20mm)
Technically right but I think you mean 1200mm2 (a radius of approx 20mm)
Yes!
I actually had an autocorrect suggestion for "1200m2" in there for some reason.
I actually had an autocorrect suggestion for "1200m2" in there for some reason.
That depends. It could be that they use aluminum instead. Apparently that's quite common in HVDC cables and interesting for cost reasons.
~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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Maybe @dang can help with the title
Happy to, but can someone suggest what a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title would be?
p.s. @dang doesn't work, which is why I didn't respond to this sooner. For guaranteed message delivery, you (or someone) need to email [email protected].
p.s. @dang doesn't work, which is why I didn't respond to this sooner. For guaranteed message delivery, you (or someone) need to email [email protected].
> I guess we're looking at a bright future.
We have to, otherwise the solar panels wouldn't work.
We have to, otherwise the solar panels wouldn't work.
36-42GWh storage capacity is absolutely huge.
From what I can tell, like ten times the size of existing storage plants around the world.
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.
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.
Technology is progressing so fast that something like space based solar or fusion power will replace terrestrial solar within 100 years.
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.
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.
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.
Keeping A bombs out of the hands of supervillains is much much more trickier, yet we managed to do that for the last 70 years.
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?
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?
Anything which could transmit meaningful power to the ground is going to have no issue destroying anything approaching it from below.
And why wouldn’t one of those powers be the ones installing such an installation in the first place?
And why wouldn’t one of those powers be the ones installing such an installation in the first place?
Stuff in space is very vulnerable due to the high cost of shielding. How would an energy weapon in space fare against its hardened counterparts on the ground? How would it defend against clouds of shrapnel?
First you have to get the shrapnel off the ground, and into orbit.
A non trivial problem if whatever is on the ground trying to launch is being heated white hot by a maser, no?
And getting there has non trivial flight time too, plenty of time for it to be melted on its way.
Orbit is the ‘high ground’.
A non trivial problem if whatever is on the ground trying to launch is being heated white hot by a maser, no?
And getting there has non trivial flight time too, plenty of time for it to be melted on its way.
Orbit is the ‘high ground’.
High ground is beneficial because you have direct line of fire where the enemy hasn't. But there is no ground to hide behind in orbit.
So what about this orbiting duck of yours, the power station recently turned rogue?
Look, the satellites you share an orbit with are adjusting their trajectories to intercept yours. Undisturbed, they will pose collision hazards within the next days. You must fry them all before they complete the adjustments. Do you have a real time feed of their position for targeting? Bet you do, you're a supervillain after all.
But some satellites are passing behind earth, they will complete their manouvers before they emerge from earth's shadow. The first hit is predicted in just 130 hours.
But hey a bunch of missiles took off on the other side of earth, they are now on a ballistic trajectory that intercepts your station's orbit. Thanks to your flawless targeting, you manage to melt some of them. Their debris will hit anyway, your station has 19 minutes left before impact.
Meanwhile, some subs poke laser scopes out of the sea, taking shots at your station. You divert your energy from the incoming missiles, but when you try to hit one, the scope is submerged again. You produce a plume of steam.
And what is this? What was supposedly a radar array starts to beam microwaves your way. Your station overheats in seconds because it has almost no mass and lots of surface. You could've taken out maybe one of the hundreds of antennas in the array if your comms hadn't already been crippled by a laser.
As you lift your gaze from the now useless controls, the sky is lit by a tactical nuke that was hiding in a spy satellite. It happened to be close enough for a crippling EMP blow.
Fin.
So what about this orbiting duck of yours, the power station recently turned rogue?
Look, the satellites you share an orbit with are adjusting their trajectories to intercept yours. Undisturbed, they will pose collision hazards within the next days. You must fry them all before they complete the adjustments. Do you have a real time feed of their position for targeting? Bet you do, you're a supervillain after all.
But some satellites are passing behind earth, they will complete their manouvers before they emerge from earth's shadow. The first hit is predicted in just 130 hours.
But hey a bunch of missiles took off on the other side of earth, they are now on a ballistic trajectory that intercepts your station's orbit. Thanks to your flawless targeting, you manage to melt some of them. Their debris will hit anyway, your station has 19 minutes left before impact.
Meanwhile, some subs poke laser scopes out of the sea, taking shots at your station. You divert your energy from the incoming missiles, but when you try to hit one, the scope is submerged again. You produce a plume of steam.
And what is this? What was supposedly a radar array starts to beam microwaves your way. Your station overheats in seconds because it has almost no mass and lots of surface. You could've taken out maybe one of the hundreds of antennas in the array if your comms hadn't already been crippled by a laser.
As you lift your gaze from the now useless controls, the sky is lit by a tactical nuke that was hiding in a spy satellite. It happened to be close enough for a crippling EMP blow.
Fin.
You realize most aimable power systems can also aim sideways, right?
And any significant orbital power station is going to have to be pretty big. Or it’s pretty pointless.
Which means it’s going to have a lot of mass.
And any significant orbital power station is going to have to be pretty big. Or it’s pretty pointless.
Which means it’s going to have a lot of mass.
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.
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.
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.
Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some remote area somewhere?
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.
Please enough of them far away from Earth and you get pretty much unlimited energy all year round.
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.
The funny thing about solar panels is that they are the most efficient at very low temperatures. They'd be more efficient at the poles or high up in the mountains where they can be kept cool.
A solar panel in space would be highly efficient.
A solar panel in space would be highly efficient.
Why would you want to do orbital repairs? For the amount of effort required, you'd just send up a replacement.
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.
Even if you can turn 100% of the energy you received from space into electricity, in the end it'll all turn to heat.
Ok, so we get a really big heat pump that sends all the heat to space.
If only thermodynamics was this easy. Heat pumps ain't magic, alas, they are still subject to physical limitations, including the laws of thermodynamics.
Also keep in mind that cooling the hot part of your space heat pump is very limited: there's no convection nor conduction in space. You can only lose heat energy via radiation or ablation (= shooting away hot pieces).
Also keep in mind that cooling the hot part of your space heat pump is very limited: there's no convection nor conduction in space. You can only lose heat energy via radiation or ablation (= shooting away hot pieces).
Waste heat from microwave energy? Am I missing something?
I'm talking about waste heat from when you use the electricity.
Almost no matter what machine you are powering, be it a a toaster or a computer or an electric car or a washing machine, eventually turns all of the electric energy into heat.
(You can contrive some counter-examples. Eg if you point a sufficiently strong laser pointer at the sky, some of the energy will escape earth before turning into heat here.)
Almost no matter what machine you are powering, be it a a toaster or a computer or an electric car or a washing machine, eventually turns all of the electric energy into heat.
(You can contrive some counter-examples. Eg if you point a sufficiently strong laser pointer at the sky, some of the energy will escape earth before turning into heat here.)
Inventing the Dyson Sphere one step at a time
> Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some remote area somewhere?
When land becomes the limiting factor on earth.
When land becomes the limiting factor on earth.
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.
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.
> 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.)
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.)
> 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/
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/
> 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.
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.
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.
All while Australian's themselves pay astronomical prices for power
Surely solar panels are affordable with typical Australian household incomes? And much more effective even in southern Tasmania at 45°S as compared to southern Finland at 60°N (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
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
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.
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)
We in NZ are cursed with cheap power (albeit I can sell solar power to spot market at 3x of night retail rate)
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.
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
We have one of the most expensive property markets in the world. An apartment is still possible for under a million however. The median for homes last I looked was due to, or had breached 1.6 million AUD with apartments at a median in the mid 800k AUD range.
Whether or not said apartment is suitable for solar however is not guaranteed. You need both a balcony large enough and in a position to capture the sun. Both things likely to push you towards the higher end of the market at 700-800k.
“Just like last year, Australia's largest capital city ranked as the second least affordable major property market in the world. With a staggering median multiple of 13.8, typical Sydney homes cost about 13 times the average household's annual income.”
Whether or not said apartment is suitable for solar however is not guaranteed. You need both a balcony large enough and in a position to capture the sun. Both things likely to push you towards the higher end of the market at 700-800k.
“Just like last year, Australia's largest capital city ranked as the second least affordable major property market in the world. With a staggering median multiple of 13.8, typical Sydney homes cost about 13 times the average household's annual income.”
Australia has the per capita highest rooftop solar capacity on Earth and it's generously subsidised.
Is that why grid power is so expensive then: the couple kWh that someone still draws from the grid needs to pay for the big infrastructure and plants?
Power is expensive for a few reasons.
1. Aging base load generation
2. Housing stock from cheap fuel times facing globalised energy prices.
3. Network assets being corporatised and partially privatised and there having been incentives for these monopolies to invest in unproductive assets for which they are permitted to recover their costs.
4. Costs of competition in the retail sector.
5. Government policy creating uncertainty in investment decisions for renewable assets.
6. The vast majority of consumption is early evening, so not much Sun.
1. Aging base load generation
2. Housing stock from cheap fuel times facing globalised energy prices.
3. Network assets being corporatised and partially privatised and there having been incentives for these monopolies to invest in unproductive assets for which they are permitted to recover their costs.
4. Costs of competition in the retail sector.
5. Government policy creating uncertainty in investment decisions for renewable assets.
6. The vast majority of consumption is early evening, so not much Sun.
That is a very complicated way to say "The government is in bed with the guys that own all the energy companies, and they have guaranteed them profits for a long time to come."
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China isn't gonna run out of coal anytime soon.
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Can someone explain how this makes sense economically, isn't it really expensive and lossy to transport electricity such a long distance?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for the correction.
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.
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 ?
What material would they use for the cables at those vast distances to make the numbers work ?
HVDC has reasonable losses over very long distances and solar is extremely cheap. I believe aluminum is used for these cables.
Obligatory jwz post on the topic: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
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?
But, sure, worth it for the HN=referrer porn JWZ throws up, I guess?
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.