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Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

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Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#111

Post by nsonha »

nroets wrote: post #64
hunglee2 wrote: post #7

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.

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.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#112

Post by L-four »

preisschild wrote: post #60
snoxy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.

Nuclear power plants, which have been successfully used for decades, are “unrealistic” now?

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.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#113

Post by nsonha »

ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #110
londons_explore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 amo…

Would they be using AC or DC? I heard that very long cables using AC can be more lossy

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.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#114

Post by defrost »

preisschild wrote: post #60
snoxy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.

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.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#115

Post by nsonha »

bigiain wrote: post #106
eru wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

the country has a big housing affordability issue.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#116

Post by mschuster91 »

eru wrote: post #101
mschuster91 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 y…

> 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/

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#117

Post by quitit »

nsonha wrote: post #111
nroets wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology is progressing so fast that something like space based solar or fusion power will replace terrestrial solar within 100 years.

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.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#118

Post by Rastonbury »

bigiain wrote: post #96
gonzo41 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 di…

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...

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#120

Post by stubish »

preisschild wrote: post #60
snoxy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.

Nuclear power plants, which have been successfully used for decades, are “unrealistic” now?

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)
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