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Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

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Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#51

Post by streamofdigits »

pphysch wrote: post #34
streamofdigits wrote: post #24

Hopelessly naive, I know, but shouldn't there be a global grid to optimally distribute electricity from solar irradiation rather than laying idiotic lengths of cable for political reasons? You want to connect the Pacific rim for that grid to work but I can easily imagine some intermediate "links" that seem to make more sense

Current gang in Canberra/Washington would never do a joint infrastructure project with Beijing, so that Chile might as well go directly there.

If they can agree on carbon emissions, they could probably agree on some coordinated infrastructure. (It doesn't actually have to be common, rather coordinated.)

I am sure if politically unencumbered engineers were to sit down they would come up with more or less the same topology...

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#52

Post by pphysch »

blocked_again wrote: post #35
simion314 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Without government doing infrastructure probably most people would not have a electricity,water and a decent road in front of their home. Or how would we imagine an alternate reality where the governments are weak, so the industrial billionaires would be the ones deciding what infrastructure to build, what science to research, what level of education is needed etc. I can only see just a few roads , with ta…

Imagine a power generation company run by Joe Biden with his white House staff vs Elon Musk with his Tesla staff. Which stock would you buy? I bet the Biden company will go bankrupt in a few years let alone go public.

Modern career politicians like Joe Biden are cut from a completely different cloth than the leaders that actually built America's infrastructure in the mid-20th century.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#53

Post by mschuster91 »

delecti wrote: post #25
_Microft wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the idea is that the producer and consumer of the energy are on opposite hemispheres and at different longitudes. That means when its winter in China, it is going to be summer in Chile. There is also a considerable time difference between the places which helps to supply electric energy via solar power even while it is night in China.

Honestly it's kinda brilliant. With a big enough global network of overbuilt solar capacity you would avoid the problems of the duck curve and weather limitations.

It's hard to build an actual network out of DC power, which is partially why AC power took over.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#55

Post by jhawk28 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Casey Handmer calculated that it was cheaper to produce solar power in Boston for local use than it was to ship solar power from Arizona to Boston.[1] Solar power is 3X as expensive to produce in Boston, but HVDC lines are even more expensive. If it's uneconomical to ship from Arizona to Boston, then Chile to Asia seems even more problematic. Although in this case the submarine HVDC line is competing against batterie…

I think the chile to asia is going to be cheaper than AZ to Boston because there is just ocean between chile and asia. It will be much more expensive over land and dealing with all the things in the way (roads, houses, railroads, tunnels, mountains...).

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#56

Post by h2odragon »

politician wrote: post #5

Why not turn it into microwaves and bounce it via mirrors in orbit? Those cables are super expensive and there is a current shortage of cable manufacturing capacity globally.

Less efficient; and it'd be an incredible weapon if it accidentally wandered off path.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#59

Post by oneplane »

blocked_again wrote: post #35
simion314 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Without government doing infrastructure probably most people would not have a electricity,water and a decent road in front of their home. Or how would we imagine an alternate reality where the governments are weak, so the industrial billionaires would be the ones deciding what infrastructure to build, what science to research, what level of education is needed etc. I can only see just a few roads , with ta…

Imagine a power generation company run by Joe Biden with his white House staff vs Elon Musk with his Tesla staff. Which stock would you buy? I bet the Biden company will go bankrupt in a few years let alone go public.

Do you really believe they will be going out there, researching, designing, and implementing anything?

They are policymakers and all their job entails is making choices. That's it. And when you are in a country and the options you present has a huge effect on that country, then the government's job is to represent the people in making the choice do either do it or not do it.

Then there are the lifelong politicians, those are mostly useless and more comparable to entertainers in an endless gameshow. It's the result of decades of min-maxing and targeting the lowest common denominator.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#60

Post by bryanlarsen »

prostoalex wrote: post #47
bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Casey Handmer calculated that it was cheaper to produce solar power in Boston for local use than it was to ship solar power from Arizona to Boston.[1] Solar power is 3X as expensive to produce in Boston, but HVDC lines are even more expensive. If it's uneconomical to ship from Arizona to Boston, then Chile to Asia seems even more problematic. Although in this case the submarine HVDC line is competing against batterie…

Source for cost is this document published in 2014 https://iea-etsap.org/E-TechDS/PDF/E12_el-t&d_KV_Apr2014_GSO... I have no idea whether those are still reasonable estimates, just wanted to point to a possibility of price improvement.

Casey is doing a green methane startup which depends on cheap solar for its viability, so I'm sure he has more accurate numbers, at least privately.

The question is more of "when" than "if" his calculations are correct, since solar power prices are coming down a lot faster than HVDC line construction costs.

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