Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

pv-tech.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 299 posts

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

#181

Post by jfoster »

fidotron wrote: post #168
vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

That is nothing. Try Chile to China: 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?

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

#182

Post by ceejayoz »

eru wrote: post #85
pas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flo…

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.

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.

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

#183

Post by jiggawatts »

ceejayoz wrote: post #182
eru wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Hydro dam failures can cause mass destruction and evacuations of entire cities. Nuclear is not unique in this aspect.

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

#184

Post by ceejayoz »

jiggawatts wrote: post #183
ceejayoz wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#185

Post by threeseed »

boringg wrote: post #164
vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

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.

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.

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

#186

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

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…

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%.

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

#187

Post by sangnoir »

lazide wrote: post #144
tdrz wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 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.

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

#188

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

fidotron wrote: post #168
vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

That is nothing. Try Chile to China: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...

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.

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

#189

Post by 7952 »

boringg wrote: post #164
vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

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.

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.

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

#190

Post by 7952 »

jibes21 wrote: post #4

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.
Post reply on HN